Enigma

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  Belatedly, Thackery understood Sebright’s objection. So this is why you didn’t like talking about Muschynka. But why shoulder the guilt when the decision was made by someone else? Neale’s right. The Planning Office isn’t willing to commit a survey ship to each colony just to find a way to mitigate the shock of Contact—

  “Cultural contamination is the whole reason this ship exists,” Neale was saying unsympathetically. “I think Thackery’s original question is still on the table. Is the team ready, or not?”

  Thackery marveled at how neatly she had manuevered Se-bright into a position where he could not say no. With the salvage issue out in the open, any refusal to proceed with the landing would be suspect. He could not fight, because he had no allies: Neale, the Protocols, and the threat of dissonance on the team all stood against him.

  But Sebright was a long time in answering, as though he were not convinced that the issue was lost. He sent Thackery a sideways glance which was an indictment, and locked gazes with Neale in a silent, furious battle of equipollent wills.

  “The team will consist of myself, Thack, Jael, and Mike,” he said finally. “Derrel will fly the gig and drop us off on the East Gate road during local night. We’ll enter Gnivi the next morning. That gives us about thirteen hours before we want to be on the surface. I suggest you spend the first eight hours of it sleeping.”

  Afterward, they came to congratulate Thackery, to clap him on the shoulder and praise him for saying what they had been eager but afraid to. All except Sebright, who quietly left, and Neale, who caught Thackery’s eye and nodded approvingly before following. To Thackery, the celebration seemed hollow. I’ll do the rest, she had said. And so she had, but never in a way that committed her, never in a way that risked anything. She had gotten him to take the risk for her.

  You’d better remember, he thought. You’d better take care of me. Because if you don’t, then I’ve been used.

  The road was crushed rock cemented by rain and centuries of booted feet and iron-rimmed cart wheels. They walked toward the city until they could see its walls outlined against the night, then squatted down to wait for the dawn.

  Collins and Tyszka quietly practiced their Gnivan together, while Thackery fussed with his nostril filters in a vain attempt to get them to draw freely. Sebright sat apart from the rest, craning his head, listening to the night sounds of Gnivi and staring into the darkness as though there were more than a deserted grassland to be seen.

  When morning came, they waited until the first traffic emerged from the East Gate, then rose, dusted themselves off and started in. As they drew near they saw that the city was adorned with all the detail and glitter of an illuminated manuscript. Instead of the bare off-yellow stucco the orbital views had led them to expect, the outer wall was a continuous work of art which was coherent without being patterned.

  “Not representational,” Collins said. “Pure decoration.”

  “They must teach graffiti in school,” Tyszka said drily.

  “It’s beautiful,” Thackery said.

  They passed two groups of outbound rurals, each with a half-full cart, without incident.

  “Early risers,” Tyszka said, taking note of the empty road between them and the city.

  “Did you see those animals?” Collins said excitedly. “That’s a canine breed of some sort, just like on the other colonies.”

  “From the size of them, I hope they breed them to be toothless,” Tyszka wisecracked.

  “Everybody have their transceivers in and on?” Sebright asked. When they gave assent, he nodded and said, “Page. Contact-1 to Descartes. Jessie, do you have a good signal on everybody?” The message was relayed by his own transceiver, nestled in his right ear canal like a hearing aid.

  “We’ve got you all,” came back Baldwin’s voice, as clear in Thackery’s ear as the voices of those with him.

  “Thanks, Jess. Contact-1 EOT.”

  As they neared the gate Sebright reminded them, “Remember, hands visible at all times, and answer their stares with smiles.” He said it in Gnivan, which was in itself another reminder.

  They had made no effort to disguise themselves as either rurals or Gnivians, and so expected to draw some attention. Thackery, Tyszka, and Collins wore the royal blue allovers, Sebright the same in red. Walking four abreast, they entered the city.

  Just inside the gate, the plaza which served as the intersection of the nine great boulevards was full of foot traffic. Yet they crossed it without difficulty, the stream of traffic parting effortlessly to permit their passage.

  “They know we’re here,” Thackery said. “Nipag todya,” he added, ducking his head in greeting to a woman frozen staring by the sight of them.

  “Good,” Sebright answered. “We’re not here to surprise them. I want the civil authorities to know we’re coming well before we get there.”

  Thackery scanned the perimeter of the plaza. Each boulevard seemed to have its own color scheme, its own characteristic whorls and filigree. “Broadway straight ahead,” he said.

  Swapping ends, Collins came up on Thackery’s right. “There’s too damn many of them talking,” she whispered. “I can’t understand a word.”

  “I’m having a little trouble myself,” Thackery admitted.

  “I think there’s your first writing, Thack,” Tyszka said, pointing at two vertical plaques cut into the corners of the entrance to Broadway and filled with bas-relief characters.

  “Street signs.”

  “ ‘This way to our leaders.’ ” Tyszka laughed. “God, I feel great.”

  Broadway was a canyon through the heart of the city, its walls rising a story higher than those of any of the other thoroughfares. The plaza traffic and its noise fell behind them, and the sound of their own footsteps echoed loudly off the hard walls. They were as alone as they had been walking into the city, with only a few of the natives visible in the distance.

  Suddenly fighting panic, Thackery pivoted his head quickly to either side and stared at the decorated walls. There were dozens of fist—and head-sized openings incorporated into the design, from waist-height to high overhead. He looked again and saw not decorations but disguised machicolations, positioned to provide a crossfire from which there would be no hiding.

  “Mark!” he cried, stopping and grabbing the veterans’ arm. The others carried on a step or two further, then stopped and half-turned to look back.

  Collins’ eyes widened dramatically, and she pointed past them back toward the plaza. “What are they doing?”

  Thackery twisted to look over his shoulder and saw a solid wall of Gnivians, standing across the entrance to Broadway. They were watching, waiting, as though they knew something—

  Pfwtt. Pfwtt-pfwtt. Pfwtt.

  The sound was of birds’ wings beating. But there were no birds on Gnivi. Yet things flew all the same, swooping down from the battlements of Broadway, things with backbones of hardwood and beaks of barbed iron. Thackery turned back and took one step toward Collins. As he did she fell toward him to her knees, the lost look on her face as devastating as the angry red flower blossoming on her chest. On the periphery of both sight and consciousness he knew that Michael, too, was down and screaming.

  Pfwtt. Pfwtt.

  Thackery dove forward to the pavement, already running with Collins’ blood. He lay there beside her as she plucked helplessly at the shaft of a second deathbird projecting from between the swell of her breasts. He heard the wet rasp of her breathing and saw her frantic writhing weaken from instant to instant. He did not know why they did not fire again and let him share her pain.

  Then someone was shouting at him in Gnivan, and a pair of strong hands was hauling him to his feet. He stood frozen for a moment, staring at the wall from which the attack had come. Then the insistent hands jerked him along, and he suddenly understood the shouted words, that he would die lying there beside her if he did not run.

  And, understanding that if nothing else, he ran before the birds could fly again.


  REGRETS

  (from Merritt Thackery’s

  JIADUR’S WAKE)

  … There is no greater pain than the pain of avoidable failure…

  Chapter 8

  * * *

  A Coin For Charon

  It was barely fifty metres to the end of Broadway, but to Thackery it was an infinite expanse of pavement which he had neither the right nor the hope of crossing safely. Fear crawled in the middle of his back and guilt churned in his bowels as he ran, barely aware of Sebright following close on his heels.

  The crowd of spectators meant sanctuary to Thackery, a place where the deathbirds could not find him. But even as he neared them and began to think yes YES I’m going to make it, Thackery could find little compassion on the faces of those who watched. A few even called out to him, jeering, taunting:

  “Ne corti lormo e huji lormo. The blood of your wives runs in our streets and you run from the fight.”

  At the same time, there was a roaring in Thackery’s left ear, noise that was without meaning until Thackery forced himself to concentrate on it. Then the roaring became Guerrieri’s insistent, anxious call, “Contact-1, report, report.”

  From the ranks of the spectators a tall man stepped forward, his face grim. He wore the vest and leggings common to the rurals, plus a red scarf knotted around his right bicep. If the clothing had not marked his class, his sun-browned skin and laborer’s physique would have.

  “You have broken ten muri of gtorman by your foolishness. Why did you not heed the warning?” he demanded as he stepped into their path.

  Thackery looked helplessly to Sebright. “We heard no warning,” the veteran said.

  “Is it beyond you to raise your eyes and read?” their accoster demanded, gesturing at the terracotta plaques. Then he craned his head to look to either side and called, “Mamet!”

  “Here, Par,” said a whippet-like woman, moving into view a few steps away. Thackery stared. It was the woman to whom he had called a greeting.

  “Why did you not stop them?”

  “Look at them,” she pleaded. “They are not from the Green Lands. Therefore they are Gnivi. How could I know they did not have safe conduct?”

  “Clearly they are not Gnivi,” Par said with hard scorn, turning back to Sebright. “You did not have safe conduct, and you did not heed the warning of the gate. Where are you from that you want death so badly?”

  Sebright parried the question with one of his own. “Our people,” he said, sweeping a hand toward the crumpled, now-still forms of Collins and Tyszka. “Can anything be done?”

  “Are the bodies of value to you?” Par asked with surprise.

  “Yes.”

  Par studied Sebright with a hard look. “You speak with the clumsy tongue of a Gnivi, yet you are not Gnivi. You are not Green, yet you claim to share our death-customs. I look forward to explanations.” Gesturing to Marnet to follow, Par turned away toward the plaza.

  Guerrieri had fallen silent during the conversation, but in the momentary lull took up his page. “Contact-1, Contact-1, come on, Mark, give us a word. Contact-1, are you still receiving?”

  “Shut the hell up,” Sebright snapped, reverting to English.

  “Contact-1, Descartes observers report two of your team down. On my way for a pick-up. I’ll put the gig down in the East Gate plaza. Estimate four minutes max.”

  “Absolutely not,” Sebright barked. “Stay the hell away.”

  “This is straight from Neale, Concom, no options.”

  “Goddamnit, you keep that thing away from here,” Sebright barked. “I’m on the scene and you’ll take your orders from me. If we need a pick-up we’ll call for one. You bring that thing in here now and you’ll put us that much farther behind.”

  Catching Sebright by the elbow, Thackery protested, “We’ve got to do something for Jael and Mike.”

  “Something’s already being done,” he said, pointing.

  In the middle of the plaza, Par and Marnet had commandeered a two-wheeled dray. As Thackery watched, they tipped it on its side, spilling its load of foodstuffs across the ground. Each taking one side of the T-shaped drawbar, they dragged the dray toward Broadway at a trot, calling “Dar mator! Let us pass!”

  Thackery retreated out of the way as the dray rumbled by. As he did, he realized that the crowd had thinned dramatically, and all those around them now wore the stamp of the rurals—make that the Green Lands. The Gnivi who had jeered and taunted them had slunk away in the wake of Par’s arrival.

  “Pan tura! Pan tura! For the dead,” cried Par as the dray advanced. He held his free arm upraised, his hand open, and Marnet did the same.

  There was a grinding sound, and beyond the bodies a block of pavement as wide as the street rose up as though on hinges, forming a waist-high barricade from wall to wall. Several armed men rose up behind it and pointed their crossbowlike weapons directly at Par and Marnet.

  “This whole damn city is a fortress,” Thackery exclaimed under his breath. “I know,” Sebright said, tight-lipped. “Tell me why and you’ll have done me a favor.”

  “Contact-1, Contact-4,” Guerrieri paged. His voice had lost its impatient edge, lost all expression whatsoever. “Just thought you might like to know. Descartes says negative, negative, negative on both Mike and Jael’s vitals.” The next sound might have been a sigh or an instant of interference. “I’ll hold at angels 20 until you need me.”

  “Acknowledged, Flight-1,” Thackery said when Sebright was silent. “It shouldn’t be long.”

  Par and Marnet took no note of the guards and the barricade except to direct their pleas of “Pan tura!” in that direction, and advanced until the dray was within a few steps of where the bodies lay. Then, while Marnet held the dray level, Par bent down and picked up Tyszka, cradling him a gentleness that betokened respect. When Par had placed the corpse on the dray bed, he retraced his steps and gathered up Collins with equal reverence.

  As they turned the dray to begin their retreat one of the Gnivian guards raised his weapon to eye level and loosed a deathbird. It flew between Par and Marnet to impale itself in the dashboard of the dray with a chunk and the sound of splintering wood. The Gnivian laughed, and Par and Mamet quickened their pace. But the attack ended there. As the dray reached the plaza the guards descended into their warren, the barrier was retracted, and normal traffic resumed, the dust of their passage muddying the blood of the dead.

  Thackery rushed to the dray and leaned over Jael, taking her clammy-cool hand in his. The sharp stink of feces, her blank open eyes, the jagged bloody rent in her clothing and chest, set Thackery to retching, and he turned away.

  “Thank you,” Sebright was saying to Par. “You are a man of conscience.”

  “I cannot say the same of you. What was your purpose there, for which you sacrificed half your party?”

  “To speak to those in the Atad. Are no outsiders permitted?”

  “But rarely. I have been there, and a few others. That you must ask the question tells me much about you.”

  “Then make us equal by telling me something of you.” Par stiffened as though insulted. “I am Par, of the Urmyk. That has always been enough to know.” He nodded sharply toward the dray. “There is no mystery in you. You are Gnivi, and you are mad, though I repeat myself too obviously. Take your dead away,” he said, and moved off to make a settlement with the dray’s owner.

  Sebright circled the dray and joined Thackery where he crouched. “I don’t know how far I can carry one of them,” Thackery said pleadingly, the stench of vomit still on his breath. “We need to bring the gig down.”

  “This Par has influence. He knows things. I don’t intend to let him get away.”

  “What are you thinking?” Thackery demanded shrilly. “We botched the Contact, and Jael and Mike are dead.”

  “Hold the postmortems until we’re back on Descartes. We can’t help the kids now. But maybe we can still save the Contact. Is there a Gnivan word for priest? Do you remember hearing
anything about their funereary rites?”

  “No and no. What? Do you think he’s going to get us into the Atad?”

  “He may not have to,” Sebright said, and lift without further explanation. Several long strides caught him up to Par, who had finished his negotiation and was moving off. Sebright planted himself in Par’s path. “If you are a man of conscience, help us.”

  Par scowled. “You require more help than I have patience for.”

  “A simple matter for Par. We must go to the Atad, for we must speak with the wisest of all men, the exemplar of conscience, he whose domain reaches from one end of the Green Land to the other.”

  Par spat at Sebright’s feet. “You will not find such a man in the Atad.”

  “Where, then? We have questions for him, and news of places beyond the Green Land.”

  “You would pursue this while your dead wait for their release?” Par asked, pointing back toward the dray. Sebright’s face took on a thoughtful expression. “I cannot give them release.”

  “You have no tomen to say the words over them?”

  “None.”

  “Do you wish the words said?”

  “I wish all to be done as prescribed.”

  Par crossed his arms over his chest and studied Sebright. “I will take you to Maija.”

  The change in plans meant renegotiation of the settlement over use of the dray. While Par attended to that detail Sebright returned to where Thackery waited.

  “Switch your transceiver to local send and receive,” he said to Thackery, walking past without stopping. Thackery slowly complied, raising his hand to his right ear and pressing the short stub projecting from his ear canal.

  “We’re going to have an audience from here on out, so I’m not going to be able to hold long discussions with you or stop to explain everything I do,” Sebright said in his ear, taking up position on one end of the crossbar. “Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Don’t contradict me, don’t question me. I need as much status as I can get with these people, and I’m starting out pretty damn low. If you spot something you think I need to know about, go off by yourself and say it. I’ll hear you fine and we won’t give them a reason to be suspicious. Understand?”