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"Never seen that. The composite is tough. A loose blade could bounce back into
the fuel line sprays."
This time Gerswin nodded slowly.
"Guess I've got a lot to leam, Markin." s, "You're young. Lieutenant. You got
time. Especially here, you have time."
Gerswin nodded again, slowly pulling the thin thermal gloves off from the
wrist backward, careful not to touch the outside surfaces.
"See you tomorrow. Lieutenant."
"Tomorrow, Markin," agreed the pilot.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow.
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Chapter XXVII
Gerswin recognized Captain Carfoos. The last time he had seen the rail-thin
officer with the limp brown hair had been outside the Gates of Hades, when
both the commandant and Carfoos had assumed that Gerswin was a sentry.
At the recollection, Gerswin repressed a snort.
"Major Hylton is waiting. Go on in, Lieutenant."
Gerswin wondered at the tone of the captain's voice, which mirrored
indifference or resignation. Gerswin seldom saw Carfoos, and could not tell
what the flat inflections meant.
"Yes, ser."
The major was alone.
"Sit down, Lieutenant."
Gerswin took the armchair across the console from the major.
"We have a problem. Lieutenant. Not a major one, but one of which the
commandant and I felt you should be apprised, since you were in at the
beginning."
"Something to do with the black gates into the mountain?"
The major nodded. "The Gates to Hades, as they are popularly called around the
base." He cleared his throat. "We had hoped to find some material, some
artifacts, which might give us an insight into pre-Federation high technology,
particularly into the composition of that nuclear bonding metal.
"We were successful, in a way. We did get an insight."
Major Hylton motioned to the junior officer.
"Come over here. Lieutenant, where you can see the screen."
The major moved his swivel to one side. Gerswin stood and moved around the
console to the major's left.
"Watch. We found one operating console, but it was locked-except to provide
the following message. After we copied the message-you'll see and hear it in a
minute we tried to analyze both the console and the message, but when we
opened the console, which took a stepped-up cutting laser, it triggered some
sort of destruct circuitry that none of our scans had even revealed. The whole
thing melted down."
The major frowned and looked back at his screen. "So did everything else. The
lighting, the screen wall projection are gone. So far, at least, the orbital
controllers have had no luck in locating the feeder satellites."
Gerswin kept from shaking his head and waited.
Major Hylton touched a stud on the console.
A text was displayed on the screen, slowly scrolling upward, with the top line
fading as it moved off the top as another replaced it at the bottom of the
screen. Gerswin could pick out some of the words, but many were totally
unfamiliar, and the thrust of the message eluded him.
This time, he did shake his head.
"I thought that with your background you might have a better understanding
than any of us did the first time through."
"No, ser. Got some words, but that's it, and most of them are Imperial.
Remember, there is really no written language left on Old Earth, especially
for a devilkid."
"Devilkid?"
"Types like me. Running around outside the shamble-towns."
"I see."
The major cleared his throat again. "In addition, there was an audio tape." He
touched another stud.
Ding!
file:///F|/rah/L.%20E.%20Modesitt/Modesitt,%2...01%20-%20Dawn%20For%20A%20Dist
ant%20Earth.txt (53 of 144) [5/22/03 12:14:51 AM]
file:///F|/rah/L.%20E.%20Modesitt/Modesitt,%20L%20E%20-%20Forever%20Hero%2001%
20-%20Dawn%20For%20A%20Distant%20Earth.txt
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The single clear tone echoed through the office before the words began to roll
from the console speakers.
This time Gerswin caught some of the phrases, recognizing that the intonation
was closer to shambletown than Imperial. The ancient voice tolled like bells
from the oldest cathedrals of New
Colora, and Gerswin shivered at some of the phrases.
"What do you think. Lieutenant?"
"Warning, with the sound of a dirge."
"Did you understand what was said?"
"Not all of it, but enough to know that unless we understand a lot more than
they did, we'd better not play with their tools."
Hylton frowned. "You understood more than I did, more than I still do when I
hear it," He pointed vaguely toward the screen. "Here's the translation into
modern Imperial, at least according to the scholar from New Avalon. Both text
and verbal messages match, of course."
The written version was not as long as it had sounded. Gerswin watched the
words march up the screen, each one pounding against him like a laser against
his personal screens.
To our future, should there be one:
This was once a military installation before we put aside weapons based on our
planet. Would that we had put aside the other dangers.
The outside gates were designed to bar anyone with less than advanced
technology; the interior precautions are designed to stop all but the most
enlightened.
The satellite map was left to show the product of a somewhat advanced
technology and to provide a record should a great time have passed.
You may be beyond us, and our secrets may be both insignificant or
incomprehensibly simplistic.
In those cases, this message is irrelevant.
If you are puzzled by the black metal bonding and cannot conceive of any way
to breach it, do not try. Beyond the metal lies only those radioactive wastes
from the most hellish weapons and systems ever conceived by the mind of man.
The wastes are buried in solid granite far beneath the installation, and
surrounding the granite, itself enhanced in density, is a shield of impermite,
the black metal.
Why do we leave such a heritage? It is possible that a future society may need
those resources.
While we cannot conceive of such a need, we have secured them. Even we could
not reclaim them, had we the time. Anyone who has the ability to recover them
should be aware of their legacy. A
complete listing of the materials follows this message.
Today, our vaunted technology is beginning to take its revenge upon our
planet.
The ocean levels are rising and the mean global temperature is increasing. The
winds are steadily wreaking more destruction, and the earth can no longer
sustain the billions who must eat.
We have reached the stars, but the stars cannot reach us. We have tried to
rebuild our sister planets to sustain life, but cannot complete that effort,
for those resources have been diverted to produce food now that our arable
land is vanishing.
We had attained an uneasy global peace, based on sufficient food for all. But
the food is no longer , sufficient, and the riots have begun.
Nothing is certain, nor whether this message will survive. No monument upon
the tortured face of the Earth is assured of survival, for already the winds
throw boulders across the high plains.
Nor will the warrens beneath the surface long survive, not when so many
organic toxics permeate the very soils and rocks of the continents.
This is not the original message of this monument. The installation was
converted once from its military purpose to a memorial for that peace which we
felt would be permanent, and as a monument to the success of our technology.
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We have converted it once more.
Call it a mausoleum, and leam from what you see, and from what you do not.
Gerswin looked up.
The major said nothing, waiting for Gerswin's reaction.
"So that was what happened."
"You speak as if it were nothing new."
"Close enough to the shambletown legends."
"Shambletown?"
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