Chapter 16

At first, as one second and then two passed and there was no response to the pressure, Travis thought he had mistaken the reading of the tape. Then, directly before his eyes, a dark line cut vertically down the wall. He applied more pressure until his fingers were half numb with effort. The line widened slowly. Finally he faced a slit some eight feet in height, a little more than two in width, and there the opening remained.

Light beyond, a cold, gray gleam--like that of a cloudy winter day on Terra--and with it the chill of air out of some arctic wasteland. Favoring his still bandaged side, Travis scraped through the door ahead of the others, and came into the place of gray cold.

“Wauggh!” Travis heard that exclamation from Jil-Lee, could have echoed it himself except that he was too astounded by what he had seen to say anything at all.

The light came from a grid of bars set far above their heads into the native rock which roofed this storehouse, for storehouse it was. There were orderly lines of boxes, some large enough to contain a tank, others no bigger than a man’s fist. Symbols in the same blue-green-purple lights of the outer wall shone from their sides.

“What--?” Buck began one question and then changed it to another: “Where do we begin to look?”

“Toward the far end.” Travis started down the center aisle between rows of the massed spoils of another time and world--or worlds. The same tape which had given him the clue to the unlocking of the door, emphasized the importance of something stored at the far end, an object or objects which must be used first. He had wondered about that tape. A sensation of urgency, almost of despair, had come through the gabble of alien words, the quick sequence of diagrams and pictures. The message might have been taped under a threat of some great peril.

There was no dust on the rows of boxes or on the floor underfoot. A current of cold, fresh air blew at intervals down the length of the huge chamber. They could not see the next aisle across the barriers of stored goods, but the only noise was a whisper and the faint sounds of their own feet. They came out into an open space backed by the wall, and Travis saw what had been so important.

“No!” His protest was involuntary, but his denial loud enough to echo.

Six--six of them--tall, narrow cases set upright against the wall; and from their depths, five pairs of dark eyes staring back at him in cold measurement. These were the men of the ships--the men Menlik had dreamed of--their bald white heads, their thin bodies with the skintight covering of the familiar blue-green-purple. Five of them were here, alive--watching ... waiting...

Five men--and six boxes. That small fact broke the spell in which those eyes held Travis. He looked again at the sixth box to his right. Expecting to meet another pair of eyes this time, he was disconcerted to face only emptiness. Then, as his gaze traveled downward, he saw what lay on the floor there--a skull, a tangle of bones, tattered material cobwebbed into dusty rags by time. Whatever had preserved five of the star men intact, had failed the sixth of their company.

“They are alive!” Jil-Lee whispered.

“I do not think so,” Buck answered. Travis took another step, reached out to touch the transparent front of the nearest coffin case. There was no change in the eyes of the alien who stood within, no indication that if the Apaches could see him, he would be able to return their interest. The five stares which had bemused the visitors at first, did not break to follow their movements.

But Travis knew! Whether it was some message on the tape which the sight of the sleepers made clear, or whether some residue of the driving purpose which had set them there now reached his mind, was immaterial. He knew the purpose of this room and its contents, why it had been made and the reason its six guardians had been left as prisoners--and what they wanted from anyone coming after them.

“They sleep,” he said softly.

“Sleep?” Buck caught him up.

“They sleep in something like deep freeze.”

“Do you mean they can be brought to life again!” Jil-Lee cried.

“Maybe not now--it must be too long--but they were meant to wait out a period and be restored.”

“How do you know that?” Buck asked.

“I don’t know for certain, but I think I understand a little. Something happened a long time ago. Maybe it was a war, a war between whole star systems, bigger and worse than anything we can imagine. I think this planet was an outpost, and when the supply ships didn’t come any more, when they knew they might be cut off for some length of time, they closed down. Stacked their supplies and machines here and then went to sleep to wait for their rescuers...”

“For rescuers who never came,” Jil-Lee said softly. “And there is a chance they could be revived even now?”

Travis shivered. “Not one I would want to take.”

“No,” Buck’s tone was somber, “that I agree to, younger brother. These are not men as we know them, and I do not think they would be good dalaanbiyat’i--allies. They had go’ndi in plenty, these star men, but it is not the power of the People. No one but a madman or a fool would try to disturb this sleep of theirs.”

“The truth you speak,” Jil-Lee agreed. “But where in this,” he turned his shoulder to the sleeping star men and looked back at the filled chamber--”do we find anything which will serve us here and now?”

Again Travis had only the scrappiest information to draw upon. “Spread out,” he told them. “Look for the marking of a circle surrounding four dots set in a diamond pattern.”

They went, but Travis lingered for a moment to look once more into the bleak and bitter eyes of the star men. How many planet years ago had they sealed themselves into those boxes? A thousand, ten thousand? Their empire was long gone, yet here was an outpost still waiting to be revived to carry on its mysterious duties. It was as if in Saxon-invaded Britain long ago a Roman garrison had been frozen to await the return of the legions. Buck was right; there was no common ground today between Terran man and these unknowns. They must continue to sleep undisturbed.

Yet when Travis also turned away and went back down the aisle, he was still aware of a persistent pull on him to return. It was as though those eyes had set locking cords to will him back to release the sleepers. He was glad to turn a corner, to know that they could no longer watch him plunder their treasury.

“Here!” That was Buck’s voice, but it echoed so oddly across the big chamber that Travis had difficulty in deciding what part of the warehouse it was coming from. And Buck had to call several times before Travis and Jil-Lee joined him.

There was the circle-dot-diamond symbol shining on the side of a case. They worked it out of the pile, setting it in the open. Travis knelt to run his hands along the top. The container was an unknown alloy, tough, unmarked by the years--perhaps indestructible.

Again his fingers located what his eyes could not detect--the impressions on the edge, oddly shaped impressions into which his finger tips did not fit too comfortably. He pressed, bearing down with the full strength of his arms and shoulders, and then lifted up the lid.

The Apaches looked into a set of compartments, each holding an object with a barrel, a hand grip, a general resemblance to the sidearms of their own world and time, but sufficiently different to point up the essential strangeness. With infinite care Travis worked one out of the vise-support which held it. The weapon was light in weight, lighter than any automatic he had ever held. Its barrel was long, a good eighteen inches--the grip alien in shape so that it didn’t fit comfortably into his hand, the trigger nonexistent, but in its place a button on the lower part of the barrel which could be covered by an outstretched finger.

“What does it do?” asked Buck practically.

“I’m not sure. But it is important enough to have a special mention on the tape.” Travis passed the weapon along to Buck and worked another loose from its holder.

“No way of loading I can see,” Buck said, examining the weapon with care and caution.

“I don’t think it fires a solid projectile,” Travis replied. “We’ll have to test them outside to find out just what we do have.”

The Apaches took only three of the weapons, closing the box before they left. And as they wriggled back through the crack door, Travis was visited again by that odd flash of compelling, almost possessive power he had experienced when they had lain in ambush for the Red hunting party. He took a step or two forward until he was able to catch the edge of the reading table and steady himself against it.