thicker.
Three priests stood like sentries, each forming the apex of a triangle in the middle of which was the statue.
Zhishbroom led the man past the first priest and stopped. He stooped and pressed on a tiny block of stone, and a block of the granite floor sank before him. He led Ulysses down a steep flight of granite steps lit by the cold light of vegetables. The granite slab moved out and then up behind them, and they were entombed — in a manner of speaking.
He had not suspected that there was another city under the one above ground.
This was about four square miles in area and in four levels. It had not been built by the Neshgai. It did not take long to determine that even without being told so by the priest. Ulysses realised that he was inside some sort of very ancient museum.
'Who built this city?' he said.
'We do not know,' the priest replied. 'There is evidence that it was once inhabited by a people descended from dogs or some sort of canines. But we do not think that they built this. They found it, and they lived in it without disturbing the objects you see here. And then they disappeared. They may have been killed or have left for some reason. There are people who live with The Tree who resemble these ancient peoples. They may be their descendants.
'In any event, we Neshgai were a small and primitive tribe when we wandered here, some say as refugees from The Tree. We found much here that we could use. The vegetable circuits, batteries and motors, for instance, were grown from seeds found preserved in containers. There were also many objects the purpose of which we have never been able to determine. If we could we might be able to blast The Tree to destroy it. Perhaps this is why The Tree is so intent on destroying us. It wishes to kill us before we find out how to kill it.'
He paused and then said, 'And then there is the Book of Tiznak.'
Ulysses said, 'Tiznak?'
'He was the greatest of our priests, an ancient who found out how to read the Book. Follow me. I will take you to the Book, as directed. And to Kuushmurzh, the high priest.'
Kuushmurzh was a very old and very wrinkled Neshgai with thick spectacles and shaky hands. He blessed Ulysses without getting up off his huge many-cushioned chair and said he would see him after he had read the Book. That is, he would if Ulysses was able to read the Book.
Ulysses followed the young priest past display after display, all protected by transparent walls of some material. And then he came to a cubicle which was empty except for a plate of some metal fixed to the base of a metal platform. He stopped before it, and said, 'That is strange. What was once there?'
'I think you were,' Zhishbroom said. 'At least, that is the legend. The platform was empty when we Neshgai found this place.'
Ulysses' heart beat faster, and he felt his skin turning into a mushy and cold liquid. He bent down to stare at the black lettering on the yellow metal. The room was so silent he could hear the blood singing in his ears. The sourceless light was as heavy as the cover on the Tomb of the Ages.
The letters looked as if they might have evolved from the Latin alphabet. Or from the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which was based on a number of alphabets. He studied the letters while the priest stood as patiently as one of his elephant forebears behind him. If he took for granted the similarity of the letters to those of the IPA, then he might be able to figure it out. There were thirty lines, and surely he could decipher some words here and there, no matter how much the language might have changed.
Of course, he told himself, the language might not be a form of English. He had no right to believe that he was still on a portion of the North American continent. He could have been moved to Eurasia or Africa, and this could be descended from any one of a thousand languages of his time.
Still, the Arabic numbers should not have changed. And there was nothing like them except for some ones, which could be ells. Maybe the numbers were, for some reason, spelled out.
Cuziz Zine Nea. These were the only capitalised letters. Could they stand for Ulysses Singing Bear? The initialy phoneme in Ulysses had become affricated for some reason, perhaps because of a word-final affricate preceding it? Maybe, in some cases, the word-final sound immediately preceding the word-initial sound of the next word influenced it if it were in a certain class. Just asZine may have beenSinging at one time, and thes became voiced when preceded by a voiced sound. Theing had becomeen, and then then became a nasalisation of thee, but during the evolution of the language it had influenced all words which, following it, began with a bilabial or labiodental phoneme. So that, though the finaln ofZine had disappeared, Bear (onceBer, thenBe) wasNe when it followed any word that had once had a finalm orn.
If he proceeded on this theory. he whistled and murmured then, 'I think I got it!'
There was some sense in the words. The letters were evolved from the IPA or something like it. The language had been English, but it had changed to something analogous to the structure of the Celtic languages of his time. There were words that he could not translate at all or could only guess at. After all, new words come into every language almost every year, and some become more or less permanent. And there were elisions and intrusions for which to account.
But there it was. TO HERE. ULYSSES SINGING BEAR, FAMOUS PETRIFIED MAN, ACCIDENTALLY. TO HIM. MOLECULAR STASIS DURING SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT IN SYRACUSE, NEW YORK, TO OLD NATION OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 'PETRIFIED' STATE SINCE.
The date was unintelligible. For some reason, the Arabic numbers were not used. But the date had to be the equivalent of 1985 A.D. The date given for the erection of the exhibit was also unreadable.
It did not matter whether it was 6985 A.D. or 50,000 A.D., though it was probable that the earlier date was more correct. In fifty thousand years, the language would have become absolutely unrecognisable.
It did not matter. What did was that he had once sat on this metal, or plastic, platform with the affixed plate and many visitors, perhaps millions, had filed by and read these words (in various forms as the language changed) and gazed at the immobile features with awe. And also with amazement, since humans could not keep from making witticisms even in the presence of death. They would have looked at him with jealousy, too, if they had known that he would be living when they had been dust a hundred thousand times over.
He wondered what had happened to him. Had someone stolen him? Or, more likely, had he and the platform been located somewhere else, and then taken here? Had he been separated from the platform en route? Who knew what had happened? It had taken place so long ago that it would always be a mystery.
He straightened up, and Zhishbroom walked on ahead. They went down many corridors, and at last the Neshgai halted before a blank wall. He spoke one word, and the wall seemed to melt and then become fuzzy, and there was an open doorway. He followed the giant into a small room shaped like the interior of a ball. A silvery reflecting substance coated the interior and, in the middle of the room, suspended on nothing, was a huge silvery disk. Zhishbroom took Ulysses' hand and guided him to a spot before it. The disk hung vertically before him and reflected his image.
But it did not reflect Zhishbroom, who was standing directly behind him.
'I can read nothing in the Book,' Zhishbroom said sadly.
He added, 'Call out when you are finished reading. The door will open. I will then conduct you to Kuushmurzh, and you can tell him what you read.'
Ulysses did not hear the Neshgai walk away. He continued to stare at his reflection, and then it disappeared. Evaporated, rather. Layer after layer of his flesh faded; his bones stood before him; they, too, slid into nothing; only the disk was left.
He stepped forward, thinking that he could not possibly step into the solid material — but did he know that it was solid? — and then he was inside. Or he thought he was. Like Alice through the mirror.
Things appeared around him as if they had been hidden by an invisible fog which had melted with the sun of his coming.
He walked forward and put out his hand and could touch nothing. He went through the great tree before him, passed through darkness, and was out on the other side. A woman, a beautiful brown woman wearing only earrings, a nose ring, finger rings, beads, and painted designs over half of her body, walked through him. She moved swiftly, as if she were in a speeded-up movie.
Things sped by. Somebody increased the speed of the movie even more. Then it slowed down, and he was standing by another gigantic tree in the light of the moon. The full moon was the moon he had known before he
