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"No." Thoughtfully the Mutable moved to its right so they could observe it
free of the glare from the hydrofoil's lights. It was a gesture of courtesy
and
Etienne lot himself relax further.
"The Xunca did not build this world, they modified it to suit their needs. The
asteroidal collision which produced the oceanic basin now filled by the
(Broalamasan's waters was not an astronomical accident."
"Why do that?"
"The Xunca required a large body of water which would circulate only in one
direction, whose currents would never change. The positioning of the four
small moons assures this. Here the oceanic currents flow eternally in the
direction you call clockwise.
"This perpetual motion, driven by lunar gravity, never needs refueling or
maintenance. It exists and was designed to drive great engines buried in the
ocean floor. Since Tsla-maina is tectonically stable and has been for eons
save for one regrettable massive earth tremor, there is no danger of the
machinery's being destroyed by subduction. It sits and waits, ready to be
driven by the mechanism of the ocean currents. The currents that scour the
bottom of the
Crroal-amasan are very powerful by the standards of most worlds. This
construction was necessary because there are no other stable oceanic worlds in
this area. The machinery is shielded against detection by space-going peoples.
It has lain dormant far tens of thousands of your years."
"How many tens of thousands?" Lyra wondered aloud.
"Enough to total several hundred millions."
"And you've been `caretaking' the facilities all that time?"
"We are long-lived or well-designed," the Mutable ex-plained matter-of-factly.
"I don't care," Lyra argued. "Nothing lives for a hundred million years?"
"The rocks beneath your feet do. Our internal structure resembles them more
than it does yours. You may be in-terested to know that a smaller
installation, similar to that which sleeps beneath the ocean of this world,
exists on yours."
Lyre started. "On Earth'? Nothing hike what you describe has ever been found.
Is the shielding against detection that effective?"
"Yes, but that installation was destroyed by your world's continental drift.
It was emplaced when your continents were one large land mass and there was a
single, much larger, world ocean like that on Tslamaina. The Xunca were not
omnipotent. They could not plan for every eventuality.
"But that was only a small relay and its loss not vital to the system. The
main transmitter was constructed on this world. The three local intelligent
life forms evolved inde-pendently long after its emplacement. They do not
suspect its existence. None do." He gestured past them.
"This is a tiny portion of the transmitter's antenna system. )Most of it lies
beneath your feet. It is our task to see that it remains in operating
condition, together with the extensive relay network to which it can be
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linked."
"Can it operate through the ice cap?"
"No. In the event that the transmitter system becomes active, a portion if not
all of this ice will be melted."
Etienne's thoughts moved rapidly. "That would raise the level of the
Groalamasan
enough to flood every major city on Tslamaina."
The Mutable sounded apologetic. "As I have said, all this was designed a very
tong time ago, and the Xunca could not foresee everything. However, it is
possible this will never occur. The system has not become active in all the
hundreds of millions of years since it was fashioned. Who knows how many
millions more will pass before anything happens`? Nothing may ever happen."
"Nobody builds something like this," Etienne muttered, "thinking it will never
be used."
"Why not, Etienne?" Lyra said with disarming calmness. "What about the
security alarms people put in their homes?" She looked startled. "Is that what
this is?"
"We do not know what the system is for," the Mutable replied sadly. "Not one
of us knows. We are only caretakers, net operators or builders. We do what we
were instructed to do eons ago. Watch over the system and insure that it
remains intact.
"Do not think that we merely sit and wonder. We discuss and debate. We have
our own culture. Now and then we assume one of tine shapes of the space-going
races and visit each other, for only one of us is assigned to each world. We
assist one another in diagnosing and solving problems, but generally there is
little to do. The Xunca built for the ages. But as to the purpose of the
system, only the
Xunca them-selves know that."
"What happened to them?" Etienne asked. "If they were such masters of science,
why did they let the Tar-Aiym and the Yur'rikku usurp their place?"
"The Tar-Aiym and the Hur'rikku usurped nothing. Both races rose to power in
the vacuum left by the departure of the Xunca. They Oid not force the Xunca to
leave. The Xunca were never forced to do anything. They departed because they
found something their technology could not cope with."
"Then why leave this elaborate system behind"? To let them know when it was
safe far them to return? You must know something about it?"
"Only that it will become active if whatever it was in-tended to react to
manifests itself." The Mutable hesitated. "We do know that it involves one
particular section of space."
"fan you be any more specific?"
"It lies in the direction of the constellation you call Boozes, as seen from
your Earth, but farther out. It is an area of modest size, some three hundred
million light-years across, encompassing a volume of approximately one million
cubic megaparsecs."
Etienne frowned for a moment until the figures quoted by the Mutable linked up
wish something in his memory.
"The Great Emptiness. We've known of it for hundreds of years. It's a `modest'
region, all right. It ought to be as filled with galaxies and nebulae as any
other section of space, but it's not. There's nothing there, astronomically
speaking. Some free hydrogen and a few isolated stellar masses of uncertain
composition."
"This we know," the Mutable admitted. "What we do not know is how the Xunca
transmitter is involved."
"I'd rather it were connected to something simpler to explain," Etienne [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]