Immediately all question as to the nature of this place vanished. It
could only be a military base.
There's something recognizable about weapons, Craig mused, no matter
how unfamiliar. Here were gathered great vehicles of war, bristling
with the outsize cousins of the heat-tube Brulieres carried and with
a myriad other menacing shapes. Yawning black tunnels led away at
angles--probably, Craig thought, to hidden exits. Repair machines,
some with their work partly finished, were scattered everywhere,
silent and with a long-unused air about them. Nearly all of the aerial
dreadnaughts (Craig was sure they were that) showed terrible wounds.
The group stared about the chamber in silent awe.
At one place, beneath a trio of round tunnels that aimed steeply
upward, was what Craig took to be the main launching area, with ramps
for loading ... what? The litter showed clearly where great ships had
rested, and that the departure had been hasty. Craig drew in deep
trembling breaths and imagined the vast alien argosies lifting upon
their mysterious legs of force.
He could see the avarice in Rabar's eyes, and edged closer to the
lieutenant. He wasn't going to let the man overpower Brulieres and take
the weapons, nor was he going to let him pick up any that might be
lying around. Not that Brulieres was being careless. Craig noticed that
he kept his distance from everybody, and did not turn his back for long.
They must have stared at the alien machines for quite a while before
the priest's deep voice echoed in the chamber. "Come. Another tunnel
beckons."
Craig looked where the priest pointed. He saw a tunnel like the one
they'd left, about a quarter of the way around the chamber. It glowed
with light. All the rest were dark.
He looked again at Brulieres, and was startled at the man's face. It
wore a look of glory. Craig shivered. Why, he thought, the man thinks
God arranged this for _him_.
Apparently _someone_ was arranging things, unless the tunnels and the
lights were completely robotic. Craig, ignoring the edge of panic that
cut at him, followed the priest toward the entrance to the lighted
tunnel.
It was short, with two bends in it (probably, Craig thought, to contain
possible explosions). It opened into a smaller, lower-ceilinged chamber
which had evidently been an assembly hall for troops, or possibly a
mess hall. Dark openings led off it which might lead to barracks. In
the far end, a single tunnel glowed with light.
They entered that tunnel, which was another short one, and found that
they were indeed in the living quarters. These, if the analogies
applied, had been the officers'. There was a small assembly hall, and
upon one wall of that were the pictures.
* * * * *
The lighting was arranged to fall mostly upon that side of the chamber.
The rock had been smoothed to take the murals. The first glimpse shook
Craig so that he walked mechanically toward that wall, momentarily
forgetting his companions.
A part of his mind admired the basic technique. Outlines in low
relief had been cut into the rock, details delicately etched in and
colors brought up, apparently, by altering the composition of the
rock itself. As for the style it was somewhere between realism and
impressionism. Craig was no expert, but he thought the hand was defter,
the viewpoint more penetrating, than any he'd ever seen. The slight
alien air only increased the charm of the work.
Whatever sort of beings the aliens had been, they hadn't been an
unfeeling race. Emotion leaped from every line of the murals.
The first few told concisely of the establishment on Earth of this
outpost, of the local defeat and abandonment. There were some heroic
scenes there, but Craig hurried through them, drawn to the next series
of paintings, yet unwilling to turn his eyes to them.
They were Biblical and as stunningly familiar as if he'd lived with
them all his life.
Feeling churned at his insides again.
One of the first immortalized Noah, or whoever had been the actual
hero of the first version of the Flood story. The painting of the
sea and the dark doomsday clouds over it was so real that Craig took
a step backward. Mountainous wave masses were battered white by an
incredible rain. Heaved aslant, decks tumbling water, dwarfed by the
seas, was the wooden ship. A few half-drowned domestic animals stared
in terror, lashed to their pens on deck. The bearded man who stood on
wide-planted giant's legs, rope-like fingers gripping a tiller that
strained to escape, was bedraggled but staunch and muscled to meet the
sea. A woman clung to one arm. She had been painted not delicately, but
with a strong beauty that spoke in thunder of the artist's piercing
compassion.
There was the crossing of the Red Sea, and the painting showed clearly
how some force held aside the water. The artist had evidently been
fascinated by the still-puddled seabottom.
There were more, but Craig passed them, drawn like a fish on a line to
the painting of the man on the cross. The body, more cruelly punished
than the Bible recorded, strained in an agony that communicated itself
to Craig's own. The face, twisted with pain, sagging with exhaustion,
the tortured soft brown eyes, held no bitterness, no accusation.
The accusation was the painting itself. The bitterness and rage (and
remorse?) was the painter's own.
* * * * *
Craig, frightened and miserable, looked at the others. Dientes showed
only awe and humility. Rabar was holding himself tautly, but terror
showed in his eyes. Brulieres shook with overflowing emotions, his
face mirroring worship, glory, worry and doubt. He met Craig's eyes.
His voice higher-pitched and cracked with feeling, he said, "Have you
noticed--this?"
He was standing before a vertical slab of rough stone which had
obviously been used to close up a tunnel. The sealing had been done
with melted rock, roughly, leaving a groove around the edge. The job
suggested haste. Craig's insides writhed at what might lie behind the
slab.
He gripped himself, walked over beside the priest. He could make out
only a few of the characters of the inscription burned into the slab.
He heard his own voice asking, as if from far away, "Do ... you read
Hebrew?"
Brulieres let out a trembling sigh. "With difficulty." He moved slowly
closer to the slab, put his fingers to the inscription like a blind man
feeling for Braille. Craig saw that his eyes were full of tears. The
thin lips mumbled inaudibly.
After a long time Brulieres quit reading and stood there, unmoving.
Then he started to speak. His voice was lifeless now, a low uncaring
monotone. "Scholars will translate it better, but here is the gist of
it."
TO THE DESCENDANTS OF THOSE WITH WHOSE DESTINY I HAVE BRIEFLY
MEDDLED: WHEN YOU READ THIS, YOU WILL HAVE ATTAINED A TECHNOLOGY
OF YOUR OWN WHICH WILL BE ABLE TO MAKE USE OF THE DEVICES LEFT
HERE. ASIDE FROM THEM I LEAVE YOU MY GOOD WISHES, MY APOLOGIES,
AND MY LOVE.
WHEN MY RACE ABANDONED THIS PLACE I HID FROM THEM AND STAYED BEHIND
BECAUSE I HAD FALLEN IN LOVE WITH YOUR PLANET AND YOUR RACE. I HAVE
TRIED TO HELP YOU. I AM NOT SURE I HAVE DONE WELL.