“You should pardon my prying,” inquired Gelmann from her seat on the floor, “but just what exactly do you mean by ‘under way’? Do we have another definitions problem here, I hope, maybe?”

  “You’ve brought us into some kind of ship.” Shinto solemnity or not, Shimoda was looking decidedly nervous. “Are you going to take us out of the city as well?”

  “What city?” The Autothor had to raise its voice because the walls and floor had begun to hum softly.

  “This city. The one we’re in now.”

  Iranaputra moved closer to the thrumming, pulsing ellipse. “Isn’t this a buried city?”

  “This is no city. You are confused. That is understandable, because I am still confused as well. As time passes, these confusions will resolve themselves.” It sounded very sure of itself.

  “I have this feeling,” murmured Ksarusix, “that I will be asked to improvise a dinner tonight.”

  The trembling intensified slightly and the room rocked once. The rumbling groans became a faint, distant thunder. Through the transparent panel they could see stone beginning to flake from the cavern wall.

  “Some kind of airport, or spaceport,” Shimoda rocked on his pillarlike legs. “Something’s getting ready to take off, somewhere.” He turned to face the Autothor. “What kind of building are we in?”

  “Very confused,” insisted the Autothor above its internal humming. “There are no buildings. There is only the Ship.”

  “The ship we are on, yes.” There was urgency in Iranaputra’s voice. “But what about the rest of the structures?”

  “Others? There is only one ‘structure.’”

  Through the panel they could see that the walls of the cavern were moving. No, Iranaputra thought. The walls were solid, immovable. Therefore, they had to be the ones who were moving.

  “There is only one structure,” the ellipse reiterated, “and that is the Ship. I do so dislike confusion. It and I have been in hiatus. Asleep.” There was satisfaction in its announcement. “We are both waking up now.” A pause, then, “I am monitoring external conditions. Everything is very much changed since last I was active.”

  “Just out of curiosity, old thing, when was that?” Follingston-Heath continued to minister to Gelmann.

  “Definitions again.” The wall outside the panel was definitely crumbling, the hard stone powdering and collapsing, though they could hear nothing but the rising rumble which seemed to be all around them now. The sensation of movement intensified.

  “About a million or so local years ago,” the Autothor finally disclosed. “Give or take a few thousand,” it added apologetically.

  They were silent then; at once fearful and expectant, exchanging glances, eying the Autothor, or staring out through the ascending panel as they wondered what was going to happen next. Indeed, they were wondering what was happening then.

  All except the serving robot, which was simultaneously genuflecting in the direction of the luminous blue ellipse and struggling to compose supper.

  VIII

  It was nearly midnight. Most of the inhabitants of the Lake Woneapenigong Village retirement complex were asleep or at least in bed. A few insomniacs for whom late-night broadcasts held incomprehensible attraction hovered around brightly lit vid screens as avidly as any coeleopteran around a streetlight. The Village’s night staff went quietly about their familiar business. Nurses and nursing machinery were on round-the-clock call at Lake Woneapenigong.

  An exception was to be found in the persons of Mr. and Mrs. Esau Hawthorne of Wing F, who, unable to sleep, had taken possession of a swing couch on the porch overlooking the lake and were at that moment engaged in the ancient and time-honored recreational activity known as rocking. A split moon cast dancing streaks of molten silver on the calm waters of the lake.

  At least, they had been calm until they started to bubble energetically.

  Mrs. Hawthorne touched the switch which slowed the swing’s motion and hunched forward, clutching the collar of the flowery thermosensitive nightgown tight to her neck. In their younger days she and her husband had spent many relaxing hours sitting by diverse lakes on their homeworld of Westernia in the First Federal Federation, and she was quite sure that none of them had acted even beneath a split moon like an old-fashioned bottle of carbonated soda. The bubbling was much louder than the cry of a loon or the hoot of an owl. It was louder even than Mr. Hawthorne’s occasional snores.

  An event had begun which was soon to awaken everyone in the Village, not to mention those over in Mt. Holly and distant Albany, but Mr. and Mrs. Esau Hawthorne were the only ones to observe it in its entirety.

  “Esau, I do believe we are having an earthquake.”

  “Yup.” Esau Hawthorne crossed his hands over his stomach and leaned back in the padded swing, eyes half-closed, his pajamas open to the navel to expose his white-haired torso. Esau liked it cooler than his spouse.

  Nothing more was said for several minutes. The trembling that had begun as a whisper was now shaking the entire Village complex. Rose Hawthorne watched a couple of roofing panels slide off the top of the porch and crash into the pansy bed beneath the railing.

  “Wonder if we oughtn’t to go inside?”

  “Dunno.”

  “I don’t think they’re supposed to have earthquakes in this part of the continent.”

  “Nope.”

  “I don’t like earthquakes, Esau.”

  “Don’t much care for ’em myself.”

  She pointed, her wedding ring bold on her finger. “I do believe something’s happening over that way.”

  Esau Hawthorne squinted again. Though just the animate side of a hundred, his eyesight and hearing were still quite sharp. Almost as good as those of his wife, some seventeen years his junior.

  She was right, of course. She usually was. Not only were the porch, and the roof, and entire building shaking mightily now, and the previously calm water boiling like a neglected pot, but something was definitely happening on the far side of the lake.

  A gigantic structure was emerging from beneath the ground, shoving aside granite boulders and mature pines, sending startled deer and coyotes sprinting for safety. It thrust straight up into the moonlight and shattered it into a hundred splinters of silver tenebrosity. Massive struts and spires, towers and crystalline shapes, reached for the night sky, dripping broken earth and shattered stone from their gleaming flanks.

  “There’s another one.” Her hand shifted westward.

  Sure enough, another burnished edifice was erupting from the valley to the southwest of Lake Woneapenigong. It was similar in construction to the first, but different in design. Off to the north the crests of still others began to appear.

  It was a most peculiar earthquake. It neither rose nor fell in intensity, but instead continued to rattle and roll as if the earth had been plugged into a giant vibrator. Hot cocoa sloshed out of the cup in the arm holder on Esau Hawthorne’s side of the swing until it was two-thirds empty. It trickled away through the slats of the genetically engineered cypress porch-deck planking.

  Shouts and screams now sounded behind them, the panic of residents shaken rudely awake. The Hawthornes ignored everything save the incredible sight before them.

  As they looked on, Mt. Pulaski, which dominated the far shore of the lake, began to quiver like a mound of dark green gelatin. Bits and pieces of it began to slough away, creating giant landslides. It was as though the mountain was molting. Huge chunks of exposed granite splashed into the heaving lake. A cloud of birds rushed past overhead, too frightened to cry out.

  Something was coming up out of the earth, its turgid crepuscular ascent shoving the old mountain aside.

  Then craggy old Pulaski was gone, dirt and trees and rock shuddered completely aside. Revealed as still rising beneath a now dust-shrouded moon was a dense cluster of immense horizontal towers and spires. As the earth continued to slough away from its sides it became apparent that the multiple edifices were not distinct and isolated, but were in fact interconnected segments of a unified whole. What gleamed and sparkled and rumbled out of the earth was in fact one contiguous, single, gigantic machine.

  Its profundo thrumming was clearly audible above the crash of pulverized granite and splash of disturbed water, the kind of noise a blue whale might emit in the midst of a disturbed cetacean dream.

  “Now, what do you make of that?” Rose Hawthorne settled herself back in the swing. The roof of the porch was collapsing around them, but the swing’s taut, floral cover was still intact.

  Reaching for his cocoa, Esau took a sip, made a face when he saw how much of it had been sloshed out. “Spilled m’ cocoa.”

  “Yes, yes. Never mind your stupid cocoa, you crazy old man,” she said pleasantly. “Don’t you see what’s happening?” Within the building awed exclamations were beginning to mix with the wails of confusion and fear.

  Whipped to foam, the lake began to vanish before their very eyes as with a hellish gurgling it drained away into some commodious unseen abyss.

  Mr. Hawthorne leaned slightly forward. “From the looks of it, I’d say a giant alien spaceship has come up beneath the lake and Mt. Pulaski.”

  “Don’t be an old fool, Esau,” his wife said as, enveloped in an aura of estimable majesty, the titanic construct rose into the sky, dripping rocks and earth and trees from its reflective flanks while blotting out the moon and the stars. “There’s no such thing as alien spaceships, giant or otherwise.”

  “Well, now.” Esau wished he had a full cup of hot cocoa. It was the best thing for a man to have close at hand when sitting outside on a cool night, even during an earthquake. Except for Rose, of course. “That’s a giant alien spaceship if ever I’ve seen one.”

  “You’re being ridiculous, Esau. Anyone can see that it’s a …” She waved a dainty hand in the direction of the ponderously ascending titan. “That it’s obviously a …” She never did complete the observation.

  “Y’know, old woman,” he said with a sigh as he turned up the thermostat on his pajamas a notch, “you’d think that after sixty years o’ marriage you’d have learned to listen to me once in a while.”

  “Oh very well!” She crossed her arms defiantly across her chest. “Stubborn old coot. Have it your way. If you say it’s a giant alien spaceship, then it’s a giant alien spaceship.” She delivered the concession with a derisive snort.

  Oblivious to such external evaluations, the immense Drex vessel continued to ascend. Beneath it Mt. Pulaski was no more, and Lake Woneapenigong but a forlorn gouge in the earth, its waters having completely drained away into underground cracks and chambers.

  What was even more impressive was that the Hawthornes and those of their fellow Villagers who were now awake and had not run screaming for cover were only beginning to get a look at its entire mass.

  “Everything is very much changed.” The Autothor hovered close to the five elderly hikers. It did not count the serving robot.

  Now that they were aboveground there was plenty to see, such as the extensive damp hole in the surface where Lake Woneapenigong used to be. The cavity the disappearing waters left behind suggested the extraction of a giant’s tooth, but it was nothing compared to the newly created east-west canyon which marked the former burial location of the Drex ship.

  Beyond lay the glittering lights of Lake Woneapenigong Village, no structure rising higher than three stories. Most of the lights within seemed to be on. As they continued to ascend, the lights of other communities became visible. Iranaputra thought he recognized Tolver’s Crossing, Josephson Town, North and South Brookgreen, and the irregular sheet of moonlit water which had to be Saddlebag Lake.

  “I wonder if we are making a lot of noise,” Shimoda murmured.

  “As little as possible. No need to waste energy.” The glowing ellipse hovered near his shoulder, giving a blue cast to his pale skin. So accustomed had they become to its presence that Shimoda didn’t even flinch at its proximity. It gave off only a little heat.

  “You should excuse my asking, but how high do you intend to take this ship or whatever it is?” Gelmann asked the question without turning, fascinated by the increasingly panoramic nocturnal view.

  “How high do you want to go?” the Autothor responded.

  She glanced at her companions. “I hadn’t given it any thought. I suppose this is high enough.”

  The situation in which they found themselves immediately and obediently stopped rising.

  “I’d estimate we’re about three hundred meters.” Immune to vertigo, Follingston-Heath stood right up against the perfect transparency. “Not much air traffic in these parts even in the daytime, and at this altitude we should be well below regular flight patterns.”

  “There aren’t any normal patterns hereabouts anymore. Not with this thing smack in the middle of ’em.” Hawkins glanced at the twinkling Blueness. “How big is this ship of yours, anyway?”

  “It’s not mine. It’s Drex. In the current local terminology … let me think. I find my fluency woefully deficient.”

  “You’re doing fine.” Gelmann reached out to give the ellipse an instinctive, reassuring pat, thought better of it, and drew her fingers back.

  “Some minor transposing … in length the Ship is approximately one hundred or so of your kilometers. Width varies considerably from point to point, but …”

  “Are you saying to us,” Iranaputra asked, interrupting, “that this craft is a hundred kilometers long?”

  “Yes, I’m sure that’s right. In width …”

  “Never mind, we get the picture.” Hawkins was rubbing his lips with a forefinger, a bad habit of some forty years standing. “That’s a pretty damn big ship. In fact, that’s bigger than any ship ever imagined, much less built. The federation and the Keiretsu together wouldn’t even attempt it.”

  “You’re sure this is a ship?” In spite of the evidence Shimoda was still reluctant to believe.

  “Naw,” said Hawkins. “It’s a hundred-kilometer-long gopher trap designed to clear out every lawn in the Adiron-dacks.”

  “Of course this is a ship.” The Autothor was not in the least put off by their skepticism. “It is the Ship.”

  “Well, then,” asked Gelmann, “where’s the crew?”

  “Good question, Mina.” Follingston-Heath stared at the bobbing ellipse. “Where is the crew, old thing?”

  “Isn’t that interesting?” the Autothor confessed. “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not the crew, are you?” Gelmann wondered.

  “Certainly not. What do you take me for?”

  “A ball of sky-blue fairy dust,” Hawkins muttered, “but that’s not gonna get us anywhere.”

  “I am a voice-responsive component of the Ship,” the ellipse deposed. “I respond, I activate, I comply and maintain, but I am not one of the crew.”

  “Then where is it?” Follingston-Heath asked again.

  “Doesn’t seem to be any, does there?” The Autothor rotated neatly on its vertical axis. “There really is no precedence for this. But in the absence of any other self-evident crew I suppose you’re it.”

  “No thanks,” Hawkins replied hastily. “We’re just visiting.”

  “Our home is in Lake Woneapenigong Village,” Iranaputra added, though he suspected they would have to change the name now. Too bad. “Mudhole Village” didn’t have quite the same cachet.

  “According to pre-hiatal information, in the absence of definitive Drex,” the ellipse explained, “any command-capable organics present qualify as crew.”

  “Screw command-capable organics.” The serving robot startled them all. “What about me? How come I can’t be part of the crew?”

  “You are a mechanical, a machine.”

  “And what the Forge are you? An angelic ansaphone?”

  “Not … a machine,” the ellipse retorted. “Nor a Drex. Suggest concentrated Gestalt by way of definition. Anyway,” it concluded somewhat huffily, “it’s none of your business.”

  “Oh, so it’s none of my business? Let me tell you something …”

  Follingston-Heath clapped a hand firmly on the robot’s spherical head. “See here, old thing. Although I’ve no actual experience in this area, it strikes me that it might not be wise to provoke an already confused alien whatsis imbued with unknown powers, what? So be a good gadget and cease and desist.”

  Given its present state of mechanical mind, the serving robot might have been capable of ignoring the command, but it chose not to.

  “I wonder what a Drex was?” Gelmann mused aloud.

  “Never mind that, Mina.” Shimoda scrutinized the ellipse. “We need to concentrate on our present situation so that we can resolve it to our advantage.” His stomach rumbled audibly. “Viz the fact that we have already missed dinner.”

  “From your comment I infer that you are concerned about organic sustenance.” The Autothor bounced in slow motion off the deck. “There is food on board, though after a million years I imagine it may no longer be to your taste.”

  “It may no longer be food,” Hawkins commented.

  “Not to worry,” the ellipse assured them. “I can see to the synthesis of a great variety of organic compounds. Grant me, please, a moment for contemplation.”

  The room filled with an explosive turquoise glare so intense that Gelmann cried out and everyone else covered their eyes. It dissipated fast, leaving them blinking but otherwise none the visible worse for the experience.

  “Structural analysis is complete. I infer that to ensure adequate continued operation, your physiologies require the regular ingestion of certain carbon-based compounds, in addition to modest quantities of water. This is not unexpected. A portion of the Ship designed to supply such compounds is presently undergoing necessary reprogramming in order to serve these needs. To put it more succinctly, dinner will be along shortly.”

  “Why are you being so nice to us, you shouldn’t think I’m suspicious?” Gelmann asked.

  “I have already explained. I am designed to carry out minimal necessary post-hiatal operations, but in order to proceed further it is necessary for supplementary command to be provided by crew. In the absence of definitive Drex, you is it.”