Bishop nods. “Except for the river that leads to the waterfall. There is a gap in the wall where the river flows in from the jungle. Past the wall, there’s nothing but ruins and jungle. In all directions.”
I’m not sure what I was hoping for. Valleys and fields? Forests? Maybe another city like ours, far off, a city that wasn’t abandoned?
Bishop seems uncomfortable. He has more bad news.
“Tell me,” I say. “What else did you see?”
Visca stops shuffling. He looks down. Whatever he saw disturbed him.
Bishop takes in a slow breath, lets it out even slower.
“There were pictures carved into the Observatory walls,” he says. “They showed people who looked so real I would have thought they could talk to us. Some of the carvings were of people killing each other. It reminded me of all the bodies on the Xolotl.”
If the images disturb Bishop this much, they must be awful.
“You didn’t get inside, though?”
He shakes his head.
“At the very top, there were lights,” he says. “Small lights, so small you can’t see them from here. Gaston is right—the building has power.”
It’s not Gaston who is right, it’s O’Malley. No use in explaining that now.
“I don’t know what good that does us,” I say. “If we can’t get in, what’s the point?”
Bishop’s jaw muscles twitch. “I think we can. There’s a pillar at the top, with all the symbols on it. Each symbol is big, taller than I am. The gear symbol is at the bottom. In the empty space inside the gear, there’s a handprint—and on the palm, a golden double-circle.”
Damn.
If we want to enter the Observatory, we’ll need Aramovsky to get us in.
The Observatory is massive.
The vine-covered ziggurat rises into the afternoon sky, enormous layers of stacked stone, one on top of the next. If a giant hand turned it upside down, I bet most of the city could fit inside it as if the other buildings were nothing more than a collection of pebbles. The Xolotl was huge, so large I couldn’t really process it, but this is different. That was in space. That was…well, it wasn’t real. The Observatory sits on solid ground.
If this is a testimony to what the Grownups can do, I am so grateful they are not here.
Bishop, O’Malley, Aramovsky, Spingate, Visca and I made good time. We left at sunrise. It is now a few hours past midday. Visca’s roundabout path took us south, then west, then south again, then west again, adding several hours to the trip—but we saw no sign of spiders. We’ll follow that same path back, which means we’ll get home well after sunset. Once we enter the Observatory—if we can enter—every minute we spend inside is another minute of darkness on our return.
I brought O’Malley because I need him. Manipulator or not, the shuttle recognizes him as a “Chancellor.” Any systems still working in the Observatory might do the same.
Spingate insisted on coming, saying she had exhausted the capabilities of the shuttle’s tiny lab. Either she gets more information somewhere else, or she won’t be able to stop the red mold. We think we need Aramovsky to get in. As for Bishop, I wouldn’t even consider making this trip without him. That left Gaston as the main person I could trust. He’s in charge of the shuttle while we’re gone. Borjigin and Opkick are helping him.
The towering Observatory is so big it hurts to think about it. We count thirty layers, one on top of the other. The base layer itself is taller than most of the city’s buildings, and so wide and long a hundred smaller pyramids could easily fit on it. There is something solemn about this monument that touches the sky, something…frightening.
I wonder if Aramovsky can comfort me and take away my fears the way he comforts Coyotl.
If this place doesn’t have answers, we have no choice but to go beyond the wall. Somewhere on this planet there is food for my people—I will find it. If I have to track down the fire-builders and take food away from them, I will.
Wide steps run up the ziggurat’s south face. At the top, faint and faded at this distance, I see the last layer and its pillar of six symbols glimmering in the sunlight. Twenty-five layers up, I can just make out that big vine-covered statue we saw on the pilothouse map.
Spingate’s head is tilted so far back she seems to be staring straight up.
“I can’t believe this,” she says. “To build such a thing…the Grownups are amazing.”
Aramovsky nods. Before he can mutter some nonsense about gods, I speak.
“We can believe it, because it’s right there in front of us,” I say. “Save your disbelief for things we can’t see.”
I meant that as a dig on Aramovsky. He doesn’t seem to notice.
So many vine-choked steps. My legs ache just looking at them. It will take us hours to reach the top.
“We’re wasting daylight,” Aramovsky says.
He’s right. I take a last, deep breath, resigning myself to the work that lies before us.