Analog SFF, September 2008 Read online

  She smiled in relief as his fingers returned to the control bar. Martin said, “Yes. Nothing much new. More suicide bombers in Iran. Your country and China are rattling sabers along their border. Drug resistance to AIDS is up again. The famine in Africa is getting worse.”

  He shrugged. “The usual stuff.”

  The noonday Sun faded behind a cloud. Now Katerina regretted her ploy to keep the player off.

  Martin continued, “I also heard the Chinese won't postpone their own mission here any longer. Unless our governments convince them otherwise, they're planning to send their people here at the next launch window.”

  “But they mustn't do that! The alien told us specifically that no one else should come here!”

  “The alien told us that, and we relayed what it said back home. But Beijing thinks NASA and the RSA made up our message so they could keep Mars to themselves.”

  Martin frowned. “Of course, it's totally unreasonable for the Chinese to believe that. Everybody knows the American and Russian governments would never ever tell a fib.”

  Katerina leaned away from him. She rarely saw this cynical side of her fiance without it being softened by childish humor. She whispered, “Let's pray the Chinese have more faith in us before something terrible happens.”

  “Don't count on it. And it's not just the aliens who could do something terrible. Your country and China have been getting on each other's nerves for years. If my government is too ham-handed, we could get back on China's hate list too. I doubt anybody's stupid enough to start World War III. But as tense as things are back home, it might take just a little spark to start something that could kill lots of people.”

  Martin glanced at the golden cross around her neck. "You may have faith that things will work out okay, but most people and governments don't.”

  “Are you one of those people, Martin?”

  “Once upon a time, when I was an altar boy, I wasn't. Now—I don't know. But I'd rather rely on what I can do rather than trust anybody else to do the right thing. Or hope that anyone more powerful than me will save the day.”

  He grunted. “Another thing about these aliens bothers me. It's wonderful that they've made Mars habitable for us and given the human race a chance for a fresh start. But why haven't they offered to sell us high-tech items humanity could use right away? Like a cure for cancer, a cheap nonpolluting source of unlimited energy, or a warp engine?”

  “I don't know. Perhaps they think we'd misuse them.”

  “Maybe. If we did get a hand-sized fusion reactor, some idiot or government would probably use it to terrorize and murder innocent people.”

  Katerina brow furrowed. “Our own science and technology already help us lead healthier, more comfortable lives. Yet all those ideas and innovations, from fire to nuclear energy, can be perverted to cause pain and suffering. That's not because science is bad, but because we humans can be selfish, misguided, or heartless in the way we use it. We could destroy ourselves with the technology we already have, much less what the aliens might give us.

  “When enough of us learn to love God and each other, perhaps we'll be ready to use any scientific miracles the aliens give us to make our world a better place. But for now, maybe its better if we're not tempted to misuse their technology.”

  Martin sneered, “More likely God would be used to justify killing people with that alien technology. The religion I was raised in once used Grand Inquisitors and burned heretics. There are still plenty of people willing to kill for Him or whatever secular cause they've substituted for religion.”

  “Don't blame God for that. Just as technology can be used well or misused, so can religion. When I was a little girl, my grandmother told me that my teacher at the state school was wrong when he said we humans are merely ‘hyperactive dirt with illusions of importance.’ She said we should let science tell us what Nature is and how to use it—but let religion and philosophy show us what Creation means and our place in it.”

  Martin glanced darkly at her cross. “And you think you have all the right answers?”

  Katerina's eyes moistened at the schism growing between them. “Of course not. I think and hope my religious beliefs are true, but I can't prove that to you or even myself. Perhaps—God forbid—my teacher was right and what I believe is just a collection of myths, superstition, and wishful thinking. But if my beliefs have made me a kinder, more loving person than I otherwise would have been, is merely being foolish or wrong such a terrible thing? If my belief in a caring, compassionate God inspires me to love you and help our fellow humans find our destiny in the stars, is my faith really in vain?”

  The expression on her crewmate's face held no humor. “Sorry, Katerina. This time the choir isn't listening.”

  The rover suddenly halted atop a gently sloping sand dune. Martin's eyes focused past her into the distance. He said, “What's that?”

  Katerina turned her head away from the undulating ocean, following his gaze. “What are you looking at?”

  “I thought I saw a flash of light—or something reflecting sunlight.”

  Martin pulled a pair of high-powered image-stabilizing binoculars from the small box between their seats. He stood up, peered through the binoculars—and groaned.

  “Oh, no!”

  Katerina cried, “What is it?”

  “Those jerks!”

  “Who?”

  “The aliens! They must be rolling on the ground laughing at us!”

  Katerina snatched the binoculars from him and focused them on the distant speck of light.

  Suddenly she smiled and said, “It's a new artifact!”

  “Yup.”

  “That's wonderful! Maybe the aliens are waiting for us there!”

  “Maybe. But what's that artifact shaped like?”

  She raised the binoculars again. “It's a giant pyramid.”

  “Right. A pyramid."

  Katerina frowned. “What's wrong with that? A pyramid is a structurally sound shape. I've visited the largest ones in Egypt. They've lasted for thousands of years.”

  “You're missing the point. After we tell Mission Control about it, they'll have to tell the public. I can just see the high-fives those ‘aliens-gave-their-technology-to-primitive-humans’ wackos are going to give each other!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Martin grunted. “My poor innocent Katerina, you have so much to learn about the silly pseudoscientific side of American culture!”

  He slumped into his seat. “Could've been worse. They could've made it look like a giant human face.”

  Martin took the microphone. “Houston, we've got a problem. And you're not going to believe what it is.”

  * * * *

  After several unsuccessful attempts to contact Mission Control, Martin disgustedly dropped the microphone and said, “I should've known. It's just like it was with that first artifact. Deja vu all over again.

  “The aliens are probably intentionally blocking our transmissions to Earth and giving us the same choice we had then. We can return to the module and try contacting our bosses from there about what to do—or plunge ahead into whatever game E.T. is playing this time.”

  Katerina nodded. “I think we should do what we did before—go there now and find out what they want. Doing that worked out well with their first artifact.”

  “True—but just because you win one game of Russian roulette doesn't mean it's a good idea to play another.”

  Martin snorted. “That artifact is go big the orbiters should've spotted it long ago. Either the aliens somehow shielded it from the orbiters’ cameras—or they built it this morning after we started on our trip. Either way, they're rubbing our noses in how scientifically advanced they are over us.”

  He shrugged fatalistically. “If they're that eager to attract our attention, let's find out why.”

  * * * *

  As they drove toward the alien pyramid, Katerina was impressed by how different it was from the largest one she'd seen at G
iza. The Great Pyramid's two million stone blocks were weathered and ancient, but the steel-gray structure before them looked like it had lanced up from the Martian soil that morning. While the one in Egypt had lost the smooth limestone casing stones framing its high irregular outer walls long ago, this monstrous pyramid's four triangular walls were flat and shiny. The metal that formed its sides looked solid, with no seams or plates riveted together.

  Driving alongside this towering alien artifact, their rover resembled the small green plastic car with miniature passengers she'd watched five-year-old Tim Slayton play with before Martin accidentally stepped on it. Young Tim's tears disappeared when his uncle replaced that crushed plaything with a model of the Ares VII rocket, crewed by a pair of Lilliputian figures resembling Martin and her, that would soon send the two of them to Mars. Katerina wondered if the technological giants who'd erected this gargantuan artifact would bother to remedy any damage they caused to the tiny creatures they encountered.

  Martin cruised slowly around the square base of the pyramid. “Looks about four hundred meters on each side.”

  Katerina nodded. “The tour guide on my trip to Egypt said the Great Pyramid is about one hundred thirty meters tall. This one looks about twice that height.”

  Martin rounded a corner of the artifact. “Reminds me of a Mayan pyramid without the terracing. See how its top looks flat, like the pyramid on a one dollar bill?”

  He shivered. “Thank goodness there's no freaky giant eye staring down at us from up there.”

  Katerina shouted, “There's the entrance!”

  The rover stopped near a ground-level rectangular opening. It was the size of a conventional doorway and centered in one wall of the pyramid. Martin said, “I know that opening wasn't there the last time we drove around this side. Unless it's some kind of automatic door, the aliens must know we're here.”

  Above the opening, large purple letters from an alien alphabet writhed like snakes.

  “I wonder what that says, Martin.”

  “'Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here.'”

  Martin peered into the opening. “Looks dark in there. Unless the aliens put a light switch inside the doorway, we'd better bring flashlights.”

  They got out and searched through their equipment and supplies. Katerina smiled, “I bet you wish we'd brought the high-voltage probe and multimeter to make sure this artifact isn't electrified, like you thought about the first one we found.”

  “That's okay. You convinced me last time that if the aliens wanted to exterminate us, they could do it a lot easier than by making an enormous bug zapper or a comfy motel for us roaches to check into.”

  Martin frowned at the pyramid. “At least I hope that's not what they have in mind.”

  Katerina said, “We'd better bring the medical bag, in case either of us gets hurt. I'll put some sample containers in it too, since we might find something to collect. You take the video camera and we each get a flashlight.”

  Martin turned his flashlight on and off. “Too bad this isn't a lightsaber. And I'd rather be holding a phaser than a video camera.”

  Katerina slung the strap of the large soft-sided crimson medical supply bag over her shoulder. “I don't think toys like that would work against these particular aliens. They're too powerful.”

  “I know. Still, I'd feel less doomed if I had a plasma rifle or shotgun.”

  “Don't worry, Martin. You were angry the aliens haven't answered our questions about them yet. Before the day's over, perhaps they will.”

  Martin snorted. “Let's hope we like what we hear.”

  He looked up at the towering structure and growled, “A pyramid on Mars. With our luck, we'll find Sutekh waiting for us inside.”

  “Who?”

  Martin smiled mischievously. “That's right.”

  “What?”

  Her fiance adjusted his baseball cap. “No, What's on second base. Who's on first.”

  “Why are you talking in riddles at a time like this?”

  “Ever hear the expression, ‘Whistling as you walk by the graveyard'?”

  Katerina frowned. “I think I understand. And that expression might be too appropriate. Ancient Egyptian pyramids were used as tombs.”

  “And the Mayan ones were used as temples. Just call me ‘Missouri Slayton.'”

  He walked toward the dark entrance. “Come on, Lara. We've got a tomb to raid.”

  Katerina's eyebrows arched as she followed him. She was pleasantly surprised that Martin had read Doctor Zhivago—and glad he'd finally made an allusion she understood.

  * * * *

  There was no light switch inside the doorway. The flaring white beams from their flashlights’ LEDs illuminated barely a few meters of the metal floor ahead of them.

  Martin waved his flashlight at the low ceiling and featureless walls surrounding them in the rectangular chamber. “Looks like it's all the same dark-gray metal we saw on the outside.”

  He stepped forward cautiously until a blank wall reflected light back at him. “This place is larger than a college classroom. But it looks empty, and I can't find any other exit.”

  Katerina stood close to the open entrance, where shadowed sunlight from outside still assisted her own flashlight's survey of the room. She said, “These near walls look completely bare too. And there doesn't seem to be anyone else here besides us.”

  Martin's flashlight beam swept rapidly around the room. He muttered, “Unless there's something lurking in a dark corner or hanging from the ceiling ready to pounce on us—”

  He spun around. The creature he'd sensed creeping up behind him blinked as his flashlight's magnesium-white glare dazzled its hazel eyes—

  Katerina winced and scrunched her eyelids down. “Martin, be careful!”

  “Sorry! Are you all right?”

  “I will be, when I can see again!”

  Katerina blinked several more times, then said, “Are you sure there's no exit along this far wall?”

  “No, it's a dead end.”

  “That doesn't make sense. Why would the aliens build only a single empty room in this huge pyramid?”

  “I don't know, maybe they—”

  He whispered, “Did this room just get darker?”

  “I can't tell. My eyes haven't recovered from your searchlight yet.”

  Martin stared back at the entrance to the pyramid. He groaned, “Oh, no.”

  “What's wrong?”

  The flashlight's beam darted across the floor as he quickly retraced his steps back toward the outer wall of the pyramid. He stopped abruptly as white light swirled against blank unyielding metal.

  With her vision nearly back to normal, Katerina peered through the Stygian darkness toward the sounds of his footsteps. Suddenly she realized what was wrong.

  “Martin, what happened to the entrance?”

  The clacking of his boots coming slowly toward her across the metal floor sounded like the patter of a giant cockroach. She heard him mumble “...but they don't check out.”

  Then she saw his face, ghastly pale in the darkness. “The entrance?” he said. “There is no entrance—or exit. No sign it was ever there. That metal wall looks like it's been pinched shut as if it were wet clay.”

  They stared at each other for several seconds before Katerina said, “There must be a way out of here somewhere.”

  Martin grumbled, “If this were a World War II-era movie, all we'd have to do is find a secret sliding panel or hidden trapdoor. But I can't picture the aliens taking notes while they watched old Republic serials on TV. And I don't feel any draft to indicate there's a ventilation system in here. The oxygen we're using up with each breath may not be replaced.”

  Katerina's lips started to form a prayer for deliverance—then stopped. It wasn't time for that yet—not until she and Martin had done everything they could.

  She said, “Well, before we suffocate, let's spend our last moments trying to find a way out. I'll look along that wall, and you search the one over th
ere. They may kill us, but at least we'll show these aliens that humans don't give up!”

  * * * *

  Katerina played her flashlight slowly and methodically along the wall. The gleaming gray metal showed no sign of dust or any seam to indicate a disguised door. It didn't even show any smears from her fingerprints as she periodically pressed parts of it the way Martin advised her to do. But there was no sign of any small panel she could push to make a hidden door spring open.

  Her breaths were getting harder and faster. She shouted, “Any luck, Martin?”

  From the far side of the blackened room a faint “No” echoed back at her.

  In desperation she stamped her foot against the floor, seeing if any part of it would give way. But all that did was make her sole ache.

  After muttering something in Russian that her grandmother would've chided her for saying, Katerina heard deep sonorous breathing behind her. She turned around angrily. “Martin, there's nothing over here, look somewhere—”

  The scintillating glowing lights a meter away from her twisted and writhed in a kaleidoscope of unearthly forms, as vague as the spots she'd seen when Martin's flashlight temporarily blinded her. In the span of several heartbeats they shifted from a single unrecognizable intelligent shape to what seemed a pair of entities, then into three beings that in some mystical way beyond human understanding were still only one. Another instant and the number of supernatural creatures before her became legion, yet still somehow a unity as its numbers seemed to ebb and flow between one and infinity.

  From somewhere within that hypnotic swirl a voice at once timeless and without gender formed in her mind like the tiny whisper of conscience.

  Explain why you asked your deity to punish us.

  She couldn't tell whether she spoke or thought her reply. “You've put Martin and me in danger.”

  No one has been injured. No harm has been done.

  “If you don't mean to hurt us, why did you trap us in here?”

  This is not a trap. It is a path.

  “What do you mean? There's no way out!”

  There is.

  She shone her flashlight at the solid wall beside her. “Then tell me how I get through—”