Enigma

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  But there were no fortifications, no ramparts along the “wall,” no patrolling guards or armaments. Nor was there any evidence that the rural peoples could muster any serious threat to the city. In fact, the rurals were seen daily entering the city with two—and four-wheeled carts drawn by unidentifiable draft animals. Coming in, the carts were loaded with foodstuffs; going out, they carried cold-rolled iron implements from the Gnivian forges, cloth from Gnivian looms.

  It was clear even to those who were not interpolators that any period of conflict had ended long ago, leaving as its only legacy the layout of the city. And if any doubt existed, it was banished when the archaeological base yielded up a long list of Earth cities, including Beijing, Delhi, and dozens more, whose fortress design had lived on into more peaceful eras.

  Gnivi’s industrial economy was based on the power of the river that flowed beneath it. From the differing elevations of the river on either side of the city and measurements of the kinetic energy lost in between, Tyszka postulated that the underground waterway included a series of small dams driving dozens of overshot water wheels. He was eager to see the complicated ligature of shafts and pulleys which would be needed to distribute that energy to the various workplaces.

  “Imagine!” he said during one briefing. “They may’ve built themselves a completely mechanical power distribution net, completely analogous to an electrical grid, with transformers, substations, feeder lines, and branch circuits. That was done in single factories at the start of the Industrial Revolution, but never that I know of was a whole factory district tied together.”

  All this screamed to Collins of a planned city, one that had been laid out in every detail before the first brick was laid, rather than evolving haphazardly as economics and individual initiative dictated.

  “I think there’s a good chance we’re looking at a First Colonization city plan that’s remained almost unchanged since the beginning,” she declared during another briefing “Gnivi may be the clearest clue yet to how large the FC ships were and how they chose to adopt their technologies to the world they colonized. They weren’t afraid to take big steps backward. They may even have had a strong cultural preference for simpler ways and a nonexpansionist lifestyle. That’s why none of the colonies have had spaceflight, or radio, or even the steam engine.”

  “Except Journa,” Tyszka pointed out.

  “The exception that proves the rule. They had the search for the Founders as a driver. Since they found them—us—they’ve been very conservative about introducing any new technologies to their general society. They’ve even let some Jiadurera technologies go.”

  To back up her argument, Collins could point to the otherwise unexplained observation that despite its apparent vitality, no construction was underway in the city except for what could be described as maintenance. The buildings were thousands of years old, but kept fresh and livable by what seemed to be an army of plasterers, mudworkers, and masons.

  “When we get down there, I think there’s a chance that we could pin down the time of the First Colonization with a precision nobody’s even dared hope for,” she concluded triumphantly. “We just might crack this thing.”

  For all the optimism around him, Sebright showed little inclination to hasten the day of the contact landing. In fact, during the update briefings Sebright never spoke of a landing at all. His interest was in what was known, in what remained unknown, in cross-fertilization between the disciplines, as though there were no objective beyond building an accurate portrait of Gnivi and its inhabitants. To Thackery, it seemed to be a clear message from one who had been there to those who had not that the team was not ready.

  But as the days slipped by, a week, then two, and the questions fell one by one, Sebright’s recalcitrance became both more obvious and more puzzling. He acknowledged their progress without ever acknowledging what they were progressing toward, always providing a new task to replace one completed.

  The contact landing team was diplomatic enough not to bring it up in the presence of either Sebright or those who would not be landing, but when they were alone together in the lab they began to wonder out loud.

  “Aren’t we ever going down?” fumed Collins, the most impatient of the three.

  “When we’re ready, I guess,” Tyszka said with a shrug.

  “But we are ready,” she insisted. “I’m beginning to pile up my interpolations three deep. We’ve exhausted what we can do from here. I need some fresh data. I need to get down there.”

  Thackery found himself in the unfamiliar position of defending Sebright. “When we do go down, Sebright’s got the heaviest burden. Maybe it’s not a question of whether we’re ready, but whether he is. He has the responsibility to speak for us, to negotiate for us, to explain for us. By comparison, we’re just going along as tourists.”

  “Well, damn it all, how long is it going to take him?”

  “He’s working harder than any of us,” offered Tyszka.

  “I know he is. He understands the language as well as Thack does, he can recite back my own findings to me, and he even seems to understand what Guerrieri is talking about. That’s why this is so frustrating. What’s he waiting for? What else does he need?”

  “You could go ask him,” Tyszka said with a grin.

  “Oh, no,” she said, playfully filliping a crumb of her breakfast in his direction. “I learned that lesson the last time. I’ll do my bitching to you two, thank you very much.”

  “The Concom’s gain, our loss,” Thackery said, for which she hurled a headset his way.

  But others had noticed Sebright’s behavior as well, Thackery discovered one night when the piercing tone of the shipnet awoke him two hours before his alarm would have.

  “Page. Commander Neale for Thackery,” the machine announced.

  Groggy, Thackery swung his legs over the side of the bed and groped his way to the desk before the tone could sound again. “Thackery here.”

  “I trust I haven’t disturbed you, Merritt?”

  “Oh—no.”

  “Good. I’d like you to do something for me.”

  “Certainly, Commander. What is it?”

  “Before I tell you, let me find out how you personally feel about the progress of the team.”

  It took no great insight to know where the conversation was leading. Thackery knew that Neale had been monitoring the briefings; Sebright had made a point of warning the team so they could avoid saying anything that might have repercussions. Thackery had welcomed the news, since it meant that Neale would have a chance to see him at his best.

  “I can’t judge for everyone, Commander,” he said. “I know that I’m feeling very comfortable. Four days ago I was sitting in the lab working and listening to the feed from Gnivi that was on the speaker, when I suddenly realized that I was thinking in Gnivan—that I had stopped translating back and forth from Gnivan to English in my head.”

  “So you would be ready for a landing.”

  Thackery did not want the responsibility she was implicitly offering. “That’s for you and the Concom to decide. All I can say is that our language data surpasses the criteria specified in the Protocols.”

  “Very good,” she said. “What I want from you is this: Sometime during the next update briefing, ask for a summary evaluation of the team’s readiness for a Contact.”

  Thackery’s nose wrinkled. “I don’t quite understand, Commander. I thought that’s what the whole briefing amounted to.”

  “You’ve been spending a lot of time on things that are peripheral to the main objective, guessing about things that we can go down and ask them about,” she said briskly. “I want to see people put on the spot. I want everybody to have to say ‘I’m ready’ or ‘I’m not ready until X.’ ”

  “I don’t know if it’s really my place to ask for that—,” Thackery began apprehensively.

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way.”

  Thackery did not have to work for an opportunity: Sebright himself created on
e, at the end of every briefing.

  “All right,” Sebright said. “Let’s go round the table once. Gregg, anything else? Jael? Donna? Thack?”

  Thackery took a deep breath. “I’ve got a question.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I think it’d be useful if we knew where we stood by departments. I know that I’m ready, but I don’t know enough about the requirements for the rest of you to know how close you are.”

  Sebright cast a piercing glance in his direction, as though he knew exactly what was behind the request. “Fine,” was all he said. “Thack thinks he’s ready. How about you, Jael?”

  Her “yes” was firm and hopeful.

  “Mike?”

  “Just give the word.”

  “How about the rest of you?”

  There were some nervous glances exchanged. “I don’t have any problem with my own material,” Guerrieri said tentatively. “But I’ve been going over Thack’s transcripts and Gregg’s map. I can’t see any evidence they’ve got the necessary astronomical knowledge to understand what we have to tell them.”

  Collins had a quick answer to the astrophysicist’s objection. “They don’t need to be able to think in terms of our own perspective. In fact, you can be sure that they won’t. They’re not obliged to understand our worldview. But it’s incumbent on us to understand theirs.”

  “From what I’ve found so far, I don’t think they have one,” Guerrieri said. “I don’t know if they’ve ever looked up.”

  “I would project a very primitive astronomy,” Collins persisted. “There’s no compelling nighttime body, such as a major satellite. The planet has a minimal axial inclination, so the seasons are very modest. They don’t travel, so there’s no navigational impetus. And all the farming is done by the rurals, who apparently don’t do much more than organized foraging and probably don’t have any need for a planting cycle.”

  “So,” Sebright said, cutting off any further discussion. “You all vote go. Let me point out a few things to you. Thack, you may know basic contact Gnivan inside out. Do you know how to insult them? Do you know how to keep from insulting them?”

  He did not wait for an answer but turned to the rest of them. “If the importance of that is too abstract for you, try this one. The Gnivians have potential farmland right outside their front door as good as any anywhere in the Nebraska. Why don’t they use it? Why depend on the berry-and-campfire types? For that matter, why don’t the rurals use it, instead of dragging their goods in from all over the map? When we get some of those questions answered, then we can start thinking about a landing.”

  “We can answer the questions we have left better down there,” Thackery said.

  Cocking his head to one side, Sebright gazed penetratingly into Thackery’s eyes. “See if you can understand this, rookie. Every pre-Contact profile has been wrong in at least one important way. Not just a little wrong. Not just wrong in the details. Every crew has missed something big enough to endanger the Contact, only they got by. We’re missing something, too. You just can’t learn about a society by flying overhead.”

  Thackery’s ears burned, but his example had emboldened Collins. “So what are we going to gain by waiting?” she demanded.

  “Time,” Sebright said curtly. “Enough time for you folks to come down off your high and start thinking again. When that happens, then we’ll visit Gnivi. Now, before we break up, I have some additional studies to assign ”

  That night, Neale called Thackery to her cabin.

  “Which is it, Thackery? Are you ready or aren’t you?”

  Thackery squirmed uncomfortably, anticipating the choice he was about to be forced to make. “I’m really not the one to ask. I can only speak for myself.”

  “Um.” She walked toward him and sat on the edge of the credenza. “You know, you and your teammates have done first-class work. In little more than four weeks, you’ve given us as complete a picture of the Gnivi as I could have hoped for. You’ve brought us to the point where we’re ready to close this out. We have a lot of questions for the Gnivi. I think it’s time we started asking them. In my judgment, Mark is being too cautious. What do you think?”

  When he hesitated, she reached out to touch his knee, adding, “It’s time to choose your friends.”

  Thackery slowly drew a breath. “There’s a certain irreducible risk in a contact landing. I think that the Concom could be overly occupied with that aspect of the decision.”

  She was not finished. “In your judgment, will the work you’re now doing materially affect the chances of a successful Contact?”

  “No. I don’t think it will.”

  “Do you know any specific reason why Mark should delay the Contact?”

  “No.”

  “What about the land around the city not being fanned?”

  “Jael projects that the rurals are emigrés from the city. De pending on the circumstances under which they left, they may have been forbidden to come within a certain distance of the city. The ban probably evolved into custom and taboo.”

  “Then there’s no reason not to begin the contact landing on the next cycle.” Thackery rubbed his forehead. “I don’t see any,” he said finally. “Then say so at the next briefing. And be ready with answers for his objections.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll be sitting in. Leave the rest to me.”

  It’s amazing, Thackery thought as he watched Neale and Sebright face each other down across the table, how much can be communicated without words. Since the briefing had begun, Neale had said nothing, though she had made a point of talking to each of the team members before a late-arriving Sebright had appeared. Since his arrival, Sebright had been hardly more communicative, saying only as much as was necessary to arbitrate the meandering discussions of Gnivian diet, timekeeping, and ethics.

  Yet there was a tension between the two officers, a negative energy flowing back and forth across the table. A shift in position, a raised eyebrow, a loud exhalation—these were the elements of the code.

  They’ve had this out before, Thackery realized belatedly. He knows what she wants, and she knows what she has to do to get it—put him on the spot in front of us. Through me. And anything I gain with her by doing it I’ll lose with him.

  He had not recognized the choice so clearly before. He knew Sebright better, knew him and had to work with him day in and day out. Thackery’s early harsh judgments had been tempered by the experiences of the last few months. But Sebright had no ambitions. He was where he would be until he resigned. On the other hand, Neale was not yet finished. She was still climbing, and might take others who had been useful along with her.

  Thackery was not entirely comfortable with the criteria on which the decision was turning. But neither was he comfortable with the thought of facing Neale after failing her. The time to say no had already been lost.

  Only the hope that he was right consoled him when the moment came.

  “Concom Sebright, concerning our discussion at the last briefing? I would like to formally recommend that we proceed with the contact landing,” Thackery said in a voice less sonorous than he had hoped to muster. “As far as I can determine, the data we’ve collected exceeds in every category the minimums established in the Protocols. We should be able to function effectively among the Gnivi.”

  For a moment, Sebright did not respond.

  “Do you want seconds on that?” Eagan asked.

  “No,” Sebright said. “A landing would be premature at this time.”

  His tone invited Thackery to pursue it no further, but Neale’s presence was a more powerful motivator. “Sir, I think the team would appreciate it if you could identify your specific areas of concern.”

  Sebright shook his head. “I have no specific areas of concern.”

  “Then why are we waiting?” Collins demanded. “Because you don’t trust us?” Resting his chin on his folded hands, Sebright met her level gaze. “It’s not a question of trust.”

  “
What, then?” Tyszka asked. “Why the delay? We have a right to know.”

  “I had hoped that some of you would see it yourselves. Or are you all completely insensible to the effect we’re going to have on the Gnivi?” Sebright asked. His eyes swept around the table, accusing each in turn. “The moment we go down there, we’ve changed them forever. Whatever uniqueness of thought, whatever social harmony they’ve evolved over the centuries will begin disappearing the moment they’re confronted by our existence. Is what we’re after so important that we can’t take the time to at least record what they were like?”

  “Salvage ethnology,” Collins said, surprised.

  “Exactly. Preserving what we know we’re about to destroy. The data we’re collecting now is all there’ll ever be. We have an obligation to do what we can to help them remember what they were. As far as I’m concerned, it’s worth whatever additional time it takes.”

  “Except that doing so is not part of our charge,” Neale said quietly. “There’s no provision in the Protocols for this kind of undertaking.”

  Sebright scowled at her. “So everything not required is forbidden?”

  “It’ll take six months or more to do a proper salvage study,” Collins complained.

  “We lose years by the fistful every time we craze. It can’t matter much to Unity if our Gnivi data comes in a few months later.”

  “If Unity were the only consideration, I would have to agree,” Neale said. “But is such a project proper use of this ship and this crew’s time? We’re equipped and staffed to initiate Contact. Anything beyond that will have to wait for the follow-up mission.”

  Sebright crossed his long arms over his chest. “That’ll be too late. We’ll already have contaminated their culture, just like we did the Muschynka and the Pai-Tem.”