Veruchia

  #8 in the Dumarest series

  E.C. Tubb

  Chapter One

  There was something cathedral-like about the museum so that visitors walked softly and spoke in little more than whispers, awed by the nobility of the building. It was of natural stone, the high, vaulted roofs murmuring with distant echoes, the vast chambers flanked with galleries and long windows of brightly stained glass. Even the attendants standing unobtrusively beside carved pillars seemed more like exhibits than men: creatures subjected to the taxidermist's art, uniformed simulacra set to guard fabulous treasures. It would have been easy to have forgotten their presence.

  Dumarest did not forget. From the moment he had entered the museum he had been conscious of their watchful eyes. They followed him now as he walked with a dozen others, his neutral gray in strong contrast to their city finery, a stranger and therefore an object of interest. Even guards grew bored.

  "A phendrat." The voice of the guide rose above the sussuration of halting feet. He pointed upwards to where a winged and spined creature hung suspended on invisible wires. Even in death it radiated a vicious ferocity.

  The treatment which had preserved it had not detracted from the glitter of its scales.

  "The last of its species was destroyed over three centuries ago in the Tamar Hills. It was a carnivore and the largest insect ever known on this world: the result, apparently, of wild mutation. Its life cycle followed a standard pattern, the female sought but a suitable host and buried her eggs in the living flesh. See the sting? The venom paralyzed the selected creature which could do nothing as it was eaten alive by the hatching young. Note the long proboscis, the mandibles and the hooked legs. This is the sound of a phendrat in flight."

  The guide touched a button set in a pillar and a thin, spiteful drone filled the air. A matron cleared her throat as it died away.

  "Are you certain there are none left?"

  "Positive, madam."

  "I've a farm in the Tamar Hills. If I thought those things were still around I'd sell it tomorrow."

  "You have nothing to fear, madam, I assure you." The guide moved on. "A krish," he said, halting beside a ten-foot display case filled with a mass of convoluted spines. "This one was found at the bottom of the Ashurian Sea. If you will study it you will see that the body-shell is almost covered with bright stones. Sometimes they are found so thickly laden that true mobility is lost. The stones are not natural to the creature and, as yet, we cannot determine whether or not the adornment is deliberate or accidental. By that I mean there is a possibility that the creature actually chooses to adorn its shell in the manner you see. If so the purpose could either be for camouflage, which seems unlikely, or as a means of attracting a mate."

  "Like a girl dressing up?" The man was young and inclined to be frivolous.

  The guide was curt. "Something like that, sir. But this is a male."

  "But wouldn't that mean it is intelligent?" The girl had a thin, intent face with thick brows over eyes set a little too close for beauty. She glanced up at Dumarest and he noted, among other things, that she had stayed close to his side all through the tour. "Wouldn't you say that? I mean, if a creature exercises free choice doesn't that imply it has a thinking brain? And, if it can think, then it must be intelligent."

  The guide moved on and saved him from the necessity of a reply. This time the man halted before a pedestal bearing a peculiar fabrication of metal.

  "A mystery," he said. "The alloy is of a nature unused and contains traces of elements which are not native to this world. It was obviously part of a fabrication, a machine, possibly, but what the machine was or the part this played in its construction is unknown. It was found buried in alluvium and was discovered during the mining operations at Green. Aside from the fact that it is very old and of an artificial nature nothing is known about it." He paused. "Of course there are rumors: an earlier native civilization which developed a high technology and then completely vanished without leaving any other trace; the discarded part of a spaceship of unknown manufacture; an art form of a culture unknown— the choice is limited only by the imagination. Personally I believe the explanation to be less bizarre." The girl said, "And that is?"

  "My own belief?" The guide shrugged. "The part of a machine which proved unsatisfactory and was reclaimed for salvage. The alien elements could have been imported and the alloy was probably one of a series tested for greater efficiency. Economic pressure or the discovery of a cheaper substitute would account for it no longer being in use. It most likely fell from a raft during transport to a smelter."

  A safe, mundane explanation, thought Dumarest, and one calculated to reduce interest in the strange fabrication. Who would be intrigued by junk? Yet he did not turn away, stepping closer to the pedestal instead and studying the near-shapeless mass with narrowed eyes. It was hopeless. The thing defied any attempt to determine its original function, the attrition of time marring its delicate construction. And it was delicate, that much was obvious despite the damage it had sustained: metal-like lace interspersed with solid elements and weaving conduits. If they were conduits. If the metal had originally been like lace.

  "Old," said a voice quietly. The girl was still at his side. "So very old. Did you notice how the guide paid no attention to that in his explanation?"

  "He probably didn't think it important."

  "Do you?" Her voice held interrogation. "Are you interested in ancient things? Is that why you are visiting the museum?"

  Dumarest wondered at her interest. Was it an attempt to make casual conversation or was it something deeper? She looked harmless enough, a young girl, a student perhaps, busy widening her education, but appearances could be deceptive..

  "It was raining," he said. "The museum offered shelter. And you?"

  "I've nothing better to do." Her voice fell a little, gained a slight huskiness. "And you can meet such interesting people in a museum." Her hand slipped through his arm and held it close. Through her clothing he could feel the cage of her ribs, the feverish heat of her body. "Shall we catch up with the others or have you had enough?"

  "And if I have?"

  "There are more things to do on a rainy evening than look at the past." She paused and added, meaningfully, "More pleasant and just as educational. Well?"

  "The guide is waiting," he said, and pulling his arm free strode down the chamber.

  The man had halted before a cleared space ringed with a barrier of soft ropes curling from stanchions. One hand rested on a buttoned pedestal, the other was raised in a theatrical gesture.

  "Your attention," he said as Dumarest, followed by the girl, joined the party. "What you are about to see is a true mystery for which even I have no explanation. First I will permit you to feast your eyes and then I will tell you what it is you see." He paused, a showman captivating his audience, then firmly pressed the button. "Behold!"

  Later the balm of time and weather would soften the bleakness, rounding edges and blurring harsh contours, casting a net of vegetation over the place so that the ragged outlines would merge into the landscape and the ruins be transformed into an intriguing irregularity. But now the rawness was like a blow: a jumbled pile of desolation naked to the lavender sky, the tortuous striations of savage color stark against a somber background; the exposed entrails of a beast stricken with the blind fury of relentless destruction.

  A city, thought Dumarest, like a machine, like a man, showed the agony of its death.

  He stepped forward and felt the soft impact of the barrier against his thighs, blinking as he remembered that this was illusion, but the hologram was so lifelike that it deluded even as to scale. It was hard to remember that these were not real ruins a short distance away, that they need not even look exactly as they seemed.

  Thickly he said, "Korotya?"

  "The same." The guide sounded surprised. "An unusual sight as I think you will all agree, and one of the mysteries of Selend. No one knows how destruction came to this place. Even the existence of the city was unsuspected though there had been rumors. The site is unfit for husbandry and so attracted no settlers. Hunters must have stumbled on it from time to time but, if so, they never reported having found it. The assumption is that the inhabitants made sure they could not."

  A woman said, sharply, "Killed them, you mean?"

  "Possibly, but there is no proof."

  To one side a girl whispered, "It's horrible. Such destruction! And yet, in a way, it's also magnificent. Those colors, those shapes, but how… ?"

  "Atomics." Her companion was emphatic. "What else could have generated such heat? See how the stone has fretted into outflung traceries? Internal pressures must have done that, the superheated air on the interior gusting out to blast the molten walls. The varied colors must be due to internal structures, pipes, wires, reinforcements of diverse nature. The whole thing must have happened almost instantaneously. A tremendous blast of heat which reduced the entire area into what we see."

  "But an entire city!" The girl echoed her disbelief. "And no one knew it was there?"

  "No one," said the guide, then amended his flat statement. "Aside from the inhabitants, of course, assuming that there were any inhabitants. All we know is that fifty-eight years ago seismological instruments registered a shock of great proportions. Almost at the same time reports were received of a column of flame, oddly brief, which came from the point of disturbance. The two were obviously connected. Later investigation discovered what you see before you. The area was intensely radioactive and still precludes personal investigation. It will be another century before we dare move in to commence excavations but there is little doubt as to what we shall find."

  Nothing. Circling the barrier Dumarest had no hope of anything else. The entire place must be fused solid—the buildings and the ground for miles around. There was no hope that records would remain, not even a carving on stone, a metal block engraved with the data he had hoped to find, certainly not a man who could tell him what he wanted to know.

  A man's voice rose, puzzled. "I still can't understand how the place could have remained undiscovered. Surely there were flights over the area?"

  "The entire area was mapped by aerial photography three times during the past two centuries."

  "And nothing was seen?"

  "Nothing." The guide was emphatic. "The terrain showed only an unbroken expanse of forest. As I said Korotya is a mystery. If there were answers to the questions which fill your minds it would be a mystery no longer. Those ruins are fifty-eight years old and that is the only thing we can be sure about, the only real fact we have. All the rest is surmise. How long the city existed, who built it, who lived in it, how it was destroyed, these are things we do not know."

  Dumarest had circled the area. As he approached the rest of the party the image flickered and abruptly vanished. Reaching forward he pressed the button on the pedestal and restored the illusion.

  To the guide he said, "Some things can surely be determined. The destruction was atomic in nature—you mentioned residual radioactivity."

  "That is so."

  "I assume this world is monitored. Was any record made at the time of atmospheric flights or spatial approaches?"

  The guide frowned. "I fail to understand you, sir."

  "Could the area have been bombed?"

  "Selend was not at war. The destruction was an isolated act and, in any case, how could anyone attack a city unless they knew exactly where it was? And what reason could there be for such willful destruction?"

  Dumarest pressed the point. "You haven't answered my question. Would you agree that the city could have been destroyed by external forces?"

  "It could have been," admitted the guide reluctantly. "But, equally so, it could have been destroyed in other ways. An internal explosion, for example. An experiment which went wrong—there are a multitude of possible explanations, but all of them must remain pure surmise. As I said, Korotya is a mystery." He looked at Dumarest. "You have other questions?"

  Dumarest made his decision. He had come too far not to ask even though he could guess the answer. But he had nothing to lose.

  "One," he said. "You mentioned that there were many rumors—did one of them have anything to do with the Original People?"

  "Sir?"

  "A religious sect maintaining a strict seclusion. Could Korotya have been their home?"

  Blandly the guide said, "Anything is possible, sir, but I have never heard of the sect you mention." He raised his voice. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, if you will please follow me into the other chamber I will show you the original coronation garments of the first ruler of Selend. We no longer have a monarchy, of course but Elhnan Conde was a very unusual man and insisted on wearing a very unusual robe."

  His voice faded to a murmur as he led the way, the others or the party following, the girl with the thin face hesitating and then, shrugging, following the rest. Alone Dumarest stared at the enigmatic ruins.

  He had arrived sixty years too late.

  A rumor picked up on a distant world had brought him to Selend and it had been a wasted journey. Once again as the image died he restored the illusion, looking intently at the harsh destruction. It had been too big for a monastery and there was too much stone for it to have been a simple village tucked beneath sheltering trees. Those trees and the topsoil would have been burned away, vaporized, exposing what lay beneath. Much of what he saw would have lain underground but it was still too large for primitive commune. Art, skill and technology had gone into its construction and now it was dead and those who had lived and worked in it must be dead also. And with them the knowledge he had hoped to obtain.

  He turned from the display as a fresh party led by a vociferous guide came towards him. It had stopped raining and he hesitated at the doors of the museum, looking at the gleaming streets, slickly wet beneath the lights. It was still early, people crowding the sidewalk, traffic thick on the pavements: a normal city on a normal, highly developed world. A place in which he felt restless and had no real part. His skin crawled to the imagined touch of invisible chains.

  Casually he looked around. A cluster of young girls, their voices like the twitter of birds as they chatted, waiting for friends. A tall, slim young man with a tuft of beard wearing orange and purple. A fat man arguing with his wife. An oldster, stooped, coughing and spitting phlegm. Two thick-set types, artisans probably, standing side by side silent and watchful.

  A Hausi came running up the stairs, his face marked with tribal scars. He hesitated as he saw Dumarest as if about to speak, his eyes curious, then he passed on into the museum. Dumarest turned, watching him through the glass as he moved quickly towards the offices, wondering what such a man was doing on so remote a world. Hausia rarely strayed far from the center of the galaxy where worlds were thick and their skills appreciated.

  He moved as a crowd of adolescents thronged towards the doors, running lightly down the stairs and across the street. He kept to the busy ways heading towards the edge of the city and his hotel. A tout called softly as he neared a lighted doorway.

  "Lonely, mister? There's plenty of fun inside. Genuine feelies of a thousand kinds. Full sensory participation and satisfaction guaranteed. Why live it when you can feel it? All the thrills and none of the dangers. No?" He shrugged philosophically as Dumarest passed, raising his voice again a moment later, falling silent almost immediately.

  Dumarest frowned. A tout would not break his spiel without reason; win or lose he would try every prospect, picking them out with the skill of long training, the lonely, the strangers away from home, those who looked as if they could be lured into his parlor. Someone must be close behind, a person intent on business, not pleasure.

  Deliberately he slowed, ears strained, listening for the scuff of feet. There was too much noise and he heard nothing definite. He slowed even more; if the man were genuine he would maintain his pace and pass. He did neither.

  Dumarest halted, tense, belated caution pricking its warning.

  He felt the sting of something against the back of his head, the impact, and spun, left arm outstretched, the fingers extended and clamped so as to form a rigid whole. Light from an overhead standard turned the stone of his ring into a streak of ruby fire. He saw the man standing behind him, the face pale and startled over the tuft of beard, then his fingers hit, catching the eye, ripping and tearing at yielding flesh. The man shrieked and fell away as, carried by his own momentum, Dumarest continued to turn, his neck already stiff, his legs unresponsive.

  The screams of the injured man followed him as he fell to the concrete an infinite distance below.

  * * *

  He awoke to a glare of light.

  "All right, nurse," said a heavy voice. "The primary was successful." The light moved aside and was replaced by a broad, dark face topped with a green cap bearing a medical insignia. "You've nothing to worry about," soothed the doctor. "The danger is past and you're going to be perfectly well. Now I want you to cooperate. Please blink your eyes, left first then right. That's it. Again, please. Once more. Good. Now follow the movements of my finger." He made satisfied noises as Dumarest obeyed. "Now move your head. Excellent. You may give him the secondary now, nurse."

  Dumarest felt something touch the side of his neck and he heard the sharp hiss as air blasted drugs into his bloodstream. The reaction was immediate. Life and feeling returned to his limbs, his lungs heaved beneath his aching ribs. He sat upright, fighting a sudden wave of nausea, resting his head in his hands until it had passed.

  "To ask how you feel would be a stupid question," said the doctor conversationally. "You have been under artificial stimulation for almost two weeks and the machines are not always gentle. But you are alive and the discomfort will pass."

 

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