Aftermath - Ann Aguirre [92]
“Let’s go.” I set out without further discussion of my infirmities.
The remnants of these structures defy my sense of reality in the same way the underground gate did. Some of the towers have fallen, but others remain in impossible spirals, as though the ancients understood secret laws of physics. Unquestionably, these buildings came from an advanced culture. Even now, they gleam, the metal alloy shining silver, untarnished after all these turns.
There is no sound save the wind whistling through the broken spaces, no movement except our own. We’ve found another dead, lost place, but maybe there’s some technology that can help us here, provided Vel can figure it out. And my credits say he can.
“Are you taking footage?” This is another occasion that ought to be logged for posterity.
“Of course.”
We enter the ruined city cautiously, keeping an eye out for monsters like the ones from the jungles, but this place is abandoned. Or so we think, until we pass between two fallen buildings, and hear a rumble ahead.
“It sounds big.”
He tilts his head, listening. “Not organic life, I think.”
The noise grows closer, and I hear what he means; the hum of motorized parts is unmistakable. A bot whirs into view, quite unlike our own. This one is smooth and sleek, fashioned after the number eight with a narrow head and waist. I can’t tell its purpose just by looking at it.
The bot stops when it detects us, and a green ray of light beams up. I freeze, thinking it’s a weapon, but instead the machine appears to be scanning us. Then it speaks, but I’ve never heard the language before. If I had to guess, it’s a verbal version of the signs we’ve been seeing cut into the stone tables along the way.
“Can your chip make any sense of that?” Vel asks.
I shake my head. “It’s just noise. Yours?”
“My linguistic chip includes a complete database of all human languages, including the dead ones, and this is unfamiliar.”
“Try Ithtorian?” That makes sense. The Makers are so old, and the Ithtorians were one of the first races to travel the star lanes; therefore, their paths might have crossed at some point, long before the nuclear winter that changed the face of their planet. But I’m not sure how much the language has evolved.
In response, he switches to his native tongue, and asks, “What is your purpose?”
A green light flashes on the thing’s head. Well, what would be a head if it was remotely human. It’s very other; I can tell an alien intelligence designed it. The twinkling continues for a good several minutes. And then it answers in what sounds a language similar to Ithtorian, but my chip can’t process it. So I glance at Vel for clarification.
“An archaic form not included in your language set. There would be no purpose to it, as it has not be spoken in over five thousand turns.”
“So how old is this bot, then?” I ask in wonder. “And what did it say?”
“I have no means of ascertaining that without functional equipment. And ‘I safeguard the truth.’ ” After translating for me, he converses with the bot for a few minutes, then says, “We are to follow it.”
“Where?”
“To the truth, of course.”
I flash him a dark look, but he’s already turned. The machine reverses, and it leads us through the ruins, through twists and turns. It hovers when necessary, avoiding obstacles far easier than we do. Then it leaves us entirely, zipping up to a floor to which all staircases have collapsed.
“Shit.”
“We must find a way up. It spoke of Maker archives.” He hesitates. “It called them the Sha-Fen.”
The words mean nothing to me, which means they’re so old as to have been lost from all records. Except, possibly, the ones up there, out of reach.
“Build a scaffold?” It will take time, of course, but without working technology or a gate back to Marakeq, we have nothing more pressing to attend.
It takes two days to pile enough rubble in such a way that we don’t die trying