World's End

Page 145

The metal is old, corroded, eaten away by time and the river. Once there must have been more of it ... a lot

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more. The river rolls and glitters and suddenly there is a lot more; I glimpse a crumpled form as large as--

The phantom is gone with another shimmer and twist of water, another blink of my eyes. I am not even sure that I saw it. ... I'm crazy, I see ghosts-- Stop it, goddamn you! Analyze! There is still wreckage in the water, but not all of it looks old. I force the wreckage of my thoughts to consider it again. There is a piece of hull . . . a piece of hull. Recognition is rewarded by a dizzying rush of bliss.

I shake my head, throwing off the distraction. A piece of hull. I have seen that unmistakable form somewhere, but it fits no ship I have ever seen in the spaceyards. And yet the metal looks new, now--a trick of light and water. There is something marring the perfectly preserved surface: symbols, lettering, words . . . but no language of any world I know. And yet, I know them. I strain forward; my

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sweating hands slide on the warm surface of the boulder.

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I can almost see it ... almost see it in my mind. Where have I seen this?

Suddenly the memory bursts open, and gives me my answer: I see the university, the recording--the image opening inside my head again just as it did so many years ago. . . . The language is ST'choull. The language has been dead for a thousand years. And the ship is a Class Four Estade freighter of the Old Empire.

I slide down from the rocks, deafened by the ululation inside me. I fight myself for a space of clear thought;

slowly it comes, and fills with more answers. A ship of the Old Empire crashed here. It must have happened during the Empire's fall, when refugees fled from world to world. Probably the survivors of the crash built the city up on the plateau. But then they abandoned it.

... It has lain forgotten for centuries, lost in this heart of desolation. I frown. Why would anyone do so much here, build an entire city, and then abandon it? What could make them . . . The Lake.

Was the Lake always here?

My body is wracked by ecstasy. I writhe against the stones as the Lake possesses and rewards me. Stop. . . stop it! Leave me alone! I plead. I claw my way back to reason;

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