This is a short story I read sometime in the 1980s, but (as you can guess), I can't recall the author or title.
The story starts with a line of people engaged in a complicated, winding dance that leads to a structure of some kind (I want to say it's pyramid-shaped). They are trying to get in because of the vast technological wealth inside (though it's not clear they know how to use any of the technology), and they think that doing the dance the right way will allow them past the automated defenses (considered to be evil spirits or the like) that protect it.
The group is led by a person who is a professional, but the protagonist (who may also be the narrator) is pretty sure that the dance is useless -- it's just a convenient thing to be able to rationalize that somebody did the dance wrong if they get blown up or zapped. In reality, anyone who successfully makes it to into a pyramid (there are many) just got lucky because the equipment has worn out or run out of ammo over time.
I seem to remember that the protagonist is split from the group over an argument, and either he has to go on his own to an old, empty (i.e. already raided) pyramid or he is left behind in the one they are trying to enter in the beginning after it is stripped (due to an argument after they gain entry), but maybe that's an imagined elaboration.
The story ends with the protagonist (or someone from the group) accidentally activating some controls that bring a "demon" (actually a person who was in suspended animation) up from the floor, and either the protagonist (or the whole group?) killing the sleeper (whose language they don't understand but, since it is English, the reader can comprehend) and triumphantly ripping handfuls of colorful wires off the hibernation machinery that was revealed.
Anyone have a clue?
The story starts with a line of people engaged in a complicated, winding dance that leads to a structure of some kind (I want to say it's pyramid-shaped). They are trying to get in because of the vast technological wealth inside (though it's not clear they know how to use any of the technology), and they think that doing the dance the right way will allow them past the automated defenses (considered to be evil spirits or the like) that protect it.
The group is led by a person who is a professional, but the protagonist (who may also be the narrator) is pretty sure that the dance is useless -- it's just a convenient thing to be able to rationalize that somebody did the dance wrong if they get blown up or zapped. In reality, anyone who successfully makes it to into a pyramid (there are many) just got lucky because the equipment has worn out or run out of ammo over time.
I seem to remember that the protagonist is split from the group over an argument, and either he has to go on his own to an old, empty (i.e. already raided) pyramid or he is left behind in the one they are trying to enter in the beginning after it is stripped (due to an argument after they gain entry), but maybe that's an imagined elaboration.
The story ends with the protagonist (or someone from the group) accidentally activating some controls that bring a "demon" (actually a person who was in suspended animation) up from the floor, and either the protagonist (or the whole group?) killing the sleeper (whose language they don't understand but, since it is English, the reader can comprehend) and triumphantly ripping handfuls of colorful wires off the hibernation machinery that was revealed.
Anyone have a clue?
