by Chris Walley
Then, after helping himself to more pasta, he went and sat down on the sofa, leaned back, folded his hands behind his head, and began to stare up at the ceiling. Eventually he found a pen and set to writing in the book in a tiny, neat script.
Stimulated by Vero’s action, Merral spent some time thinking about what his own role might be in trying to deal with the intruder threat. Not long after nine, both of them acknowledged tiredness and, after washing up the supper things, retired to their rooms.
Merral had held high hopes that the Solemn Day of Prayer and Fasting would shed some revelation on the questions he had, give some comfort, and grant guidance for the future. But none of these happened. And when, at last, Merral slept on the night of that Solemn Day, his slumber was a turbulent one, interrupted by strange, eerie dreams of a curious intensity. In the last of these, and the only one about which he could remember anything, he became aware that he was standing on a high, bare hill in a vast, arid landscape of browns and grays under a sky as white as bone. As he looked down the slope below him, he could see, working their way up toward him in slow, steady strides that never faltered, two figures in the gray, plated space suits of the early Assembly. Finally, they stood just before him on the summit, and as he peered into the reflective metal visors, he saw that he could see nothing, not even a reflection of himself. Then one visor slid away downward and Merral found himself gazing into the dark, hairy face of an ape-creature with snarling yellow-white teeth. As he leapt back in horror and fear, the visor on the other slid away sideways to reveal the shiny brown, woodlike plates and dark, gleaming eyes of a cockroach-beast. As the creatures raised their arms and closed on him, Merral woke and sat bolt upright, clutching his heaving chest.
Unable—and unwilling—to return to sleep, and with dawn less than an hour away, he rose and quietly showered. Then he sat and watched as the rays of the rising sun shining through torn clouds struck first the highest buildings and masts of Isterrane and then slid lower until the houses, trees, and finally the grass were baptized with a fresh, golden light. And as Merral watched, the horror of his dream seemed to fade into oblivion.
At half past seven he and Vero went up to Perena’s apartment to find Anya there, sorting out the breakfast.
“Perena’s gone to collect some images,” Anya explained. As they helped to make breakfast, Merral found himself intrigued by how different Perena’s apartment was from that of her sister. Where Anya’s had been crowded to the point of clutter and covered with green and brown wall hangings, Perena’s flat was bare and neat with cream walls. Aside from some small abstract sculptures on glass shelves and a large glass chess set, the only decoration in the main room was a large watercolor of a night scene on one of the ice moons of Fenniran, with what Merral took to be Farholme glinting in an upper corner.
As they were about to eat, Perena arrived.
“So,” Vero asked as they greeted her, “have you found something new?”
“No,” she said, and her face showed unconcealed disappointment. “They have vanished. We have a program for finding a lost ship or its wreckage. I had put all the most recent images of all of northern Menaya through it just after we met the other day, and the machines spent all yesterday scanning them. Nothing. I have that single thermal image of the shuttle taken the morning after your attack and that is all.”
Vero grimaced. “I was hoping we would have something concrete for today’s meeting.”
“I too.” She looked at her chess set. “It’s hard to make a strategy when you don’t know what pieces are in play.”
“Agreed. And no idea where they have gone?”
“None, Vero. They could easily be in an area the size of your Northern America.”
“But it can be found? by a manual search?”
She stared at him. “Perhaps. You’d look for thermal, magnetic, gravitational anomalies. Get imagery and scan every square kilometer visually. You’d have to know the area and the terrain. It could take weeks.”
“But it could be done?”
“Unless they make themselves invisible.”
Merral realized that everyone had turned to look at him. “Are you suggesting I do it?”
“Perhaps,” Vero said, waving a hand dismissively. “But we will see what the meeting brings.”
Over breakfast, Anya asked Vero whether he had had any new thoughts. He paused for a moment before answering. “Only this: I am puzzled about these intruders. They seem both powerful and weak; confident and hesitant at the same time.”
“Explain that,” said Anya. “They scare me; I’ll be honest. To destroy the Gate . . .” She shuddered.
“Yes,” said Vero thoughtfully, “they can destroy a Gate and they can modify and fake our communications. We mustn’t forget that. Yet—” he tapped the table with a finger—“yet, their dealings with us have badly failed so far. Merral and I are alive and well. Their losses were heavy.”
“God was good,” said Perena.
“Amen and amen,” Vero agreed. “But you see what I mean. It’s all very odd. It suggests that they may have only a limited power. They may not even know as much as we imagine they know. But what do you think, Merral?”
“Me? I am as puzzled as you are,” Merral replied. “But I take your point, Vero. I know nothing of warfare, but I know something of sport. I have a feeling—no, more than that—that what happened was not the carrying out of carefully planned tactics, but rather a desperate response to something going wrong.”
“Fair point,” muttered Anya, and no one seemed inclined to disagree.
A few minutes later, Vero pulled his yellow notebook out of his pocket. “Now,” he announced, “we need to decide what we want from our meeting. I think it would be helpful for you, Merral, to lead again, and I think it would also be very helpful if we agreed what we wanted beforehand.”
Merral saw nods of accord from Perena and Anya and gestured his assent.
“Thanks,” Vero said. “Now, in the few minutes left before we must leave for the meeting, let us decide what it is we wish to ask. I should say that I have my own requests, but for the moment I would prefer to keep them quiet.”
“Any reason?” Merral asked.
“They will be controversial.” He gave a deep sigh. “So controversial I think it is only fair that I alone bear any blame.”
23
The Planetary Affairs building gleamed like a great white sail in the fresh sunlight. A clerk, who was expecting them, led them down a series of stairs and corridors, ushered them into a small, windowless, white-walled room and closed the door on them. Merral looked around. Crates and boxes had been neatly piled at the back of the room to make space for a single, long, lightweight table and six white folding chairs, and along one bare wall was hung a huge administrative map of eastern Menaya with towns, roads, and airstrips overlain on the topography.
Merral disliked the room; it was small and seemed to hem him in. His mind slipped away to the open woods and forests depicted on the map, and he found himself heartily wishing that he was back at his old job, with the sound of the wind in the trees and the dappled light breaking through fluttering leaves.
His daydreams were no sooner begun than ended, as the door opened and Representative Corradon and Advisor Clemant joined them and took seats round the table.
Merral found himself looking at Corradon. There was a hint of tiredness in the blue eyes, and the representative’s bearing did not seem quite as erect as it had been.
Clemant’s face was inscrutable, yet his tense posture and his sharp gaze hinted at a deep concern.
After the briefest of greetings, Corradon stared hard at Merral. “So,” he said, “I have had some time to think about matters. First though, have you anything new for us?” His words were slow and seemed to hang in the room.
Merral gestured at Perena. “Sir, Captain Lewitz has looked further for the ship.”
“And?”
“All I have,” Perena said apologetically, “is what I showed you before. There is
no obvious trace of an intruder ship. It could have left Farholme, but I believe we would have spotted that.”
“I see,” the representative said. “I had hoped we would have a location. But finding it is something we badly need to do.” He glanced at Clemant, and Merral saw some look of concern pass between them.
Corradon looked around. “You may be surprised to learn that the information flow in this meeting may not be one way. I—we—want to reveal something to you.”
Merral saw Vero’s face register surprise.
“Just after Easter this year we had a short-lived incident that we could only classify as an extraordinary sociological anomaly. I thought of mentioning it the other day, but Lucian and I needed to think more about it. I believe it is important.”
He turned to his advisor. “Lucian, please tell them about the Miriama.”
Clemant rose, walked to the map, and gestured at a coastal town on the southeastern corner of Menaya. “The Miriama is a physical oceanography vessel—Type Six. It operates out of the Oceanography Center at Larrenport.”
At the word Larrenport, Merral had a sudden image of the town as he remembered it: the serried rows of windswept white houses clinging to the cliffs on either side of the great semicircular scoop of the bay.
Clemant’s factual and precise voice drew him back to the present. “It has a crew of ten. Normally it operates in the immediate offshore waters. About a month ago, immediately after Easter, its crew spent two weeks much farther north in the western part of the Mazurbine Ocean.” He stretched an arm out to encircle an area just offshore of where the Nannalt Delta system protruded into the sea. “Tarrent’s Rise, I think, is the main feature there. It was, for the most part, a routine trip—surveying water temperatures. As most of you know—and certainly Forester D’Avanos—we have been concerned about the trend of falling average winter temperatures over the last five years. Although the weather was unseasonably bad and it was not a pleasant trip, they returned to port safely.”
He paused, and Merral sensed that he was watching Corradon carefully, as if taking his cue from him. “At least, physically. Then we had a private message passed to us from the director of the Oceanography Center. The crew had made a curious proposal. It was simply this: Because of hardship, for the duration of such trips, they wanted their allowance to be increased.” He paused again, looking around carefully for the reaction.
Vero sat upright with such speed that he nearly fell over. “Increased? Their allowance increased?” he said, in a voice whose pitch seemed to have risen several tones. “But the allowance is fixed. For everybody in the Assembly . . . For you, for me.” He stared around with astonished brown eyes and then, with an “Oh dear, oh dear,” fell into a troubled silence.
“Just so,” noted the representative, in a tone that conveyed that he too had been shocked.
Clemant nodded. “When we had established it was a serious proposal, I was sent over. I had an interview with the captain, a Daniel Sterknem. He—they—apologized and dropped the matter. In fact, he seemed a bit puzzled where the idea had come from. I felt there had been more to the trip than he wanted to mention. But he now no longer wanted to pursue the matter. It worried us for a time.”
“As well it might,” said Vero. “It could unravel the Assembly very quickly if we started recompensing people by financial means. We would be back in a pre-Intervention mess very fast. How do you decide who deserves what? Who is worth more? A Farholme representative or a park keeper on Ancient Earth?”
“Our thoughts too, of course,” Corradon replied. “But to me—to us—it sounded similar to some aspects of what you have described or hinted at.”
Merral, trying to come to terms with the unpleasantness of a situation in which everybody was demanding compensation for what they did, was aware of the others’ nods of agreement.
As Clemant returned to his seat, Corradon glanced around with a solemn expression. “So, now we need to decide what to do.” Then his gaze fixed on Vero. “But before that, I want to ask our sentinel a question. From what I remember of the purpose of the Sentinel Order, you were set up to look for any new outbreak of evil. Correct?”
“Yes, sir. That was Moshe Adlen’s desire at the inception of the sentinels. Having served throughout the fighting that ended the Rebellion, his desire was to ensure that such events were avoided.”
“Yes. It is as I remember. And this is clearly an outbreak of evil. So, in the light of all the evidence, what do you think we are dealing with?”
Vero stared at his hands for a moment and then looked up at his questioner. “I should say, sir, that most of my guesses have been badly wrong. And some of my actions have, it seems, been unwise. But you are right that this is a sentinel matter. Indeed, I am convinced that it was precisely to look out for this sort of thing that we were set up. That I failed to spot it in time to prevent the Gate loss I think reflects badly on me. But it also reflects the fact that these events are not how we as an order had envisaged such a threat.”
“If it is in my power to do so, I excuse you.” Corradon’s voice was little more than a murmur. “Anyway, any evaluation of your role and that of your order must await our reunification with the rest of the Assembly. But please, what do you think is going on?”
Vero opened his notebook, glanced at a page, and then leaned forward. When he spoke, the words seemed to be almost painfully drawn out of him. “I feel there are three elements here. The first is this: there is so much of this matter that suggests the work of our own troubled species.”
Corradon’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “With the breach of so many of the Technology Protocols? No one in the Assembly could do this.” There was a hint of outrage in his voice. “And there is no other humanity.”
“Indeed,” Vero agreed, without raising his eyes from his notebook. “That is what we have always known. But, even without Merral feeling that he glimpsed a man, I would still guess that there was something human here.”
“The use of human DNA suggests that too,” interjected Anya.
“Perhaps,” said Corradon as he sat back in his chair and stared at Vero. “So your first element is a human component. But, Sentinel, please continue.”
Vero gazed ahead. “Th-the human element is important. I think we can eliminate any idea that we are dealing with aliens here. The second element is also another puzzle. It is that, even before you told us about the request of the crew of the Miriama, I felt that there were just so many aspects of this that echoed the times before the Assembly. Or some of the proposals the Rebellion’s instigator, William Jannafy, made long ago. It’s almost as if something—or someone—is turning back the clock.”
Vero looked at his notes again. “So that is the second element. I feel that there is an air of lawlessness, of rebellion, about it. Of rebellion . . .” He nodded, as if agreeing with himself, and then went on. “And if it is to do with mankind, then they have pushed beyond all the boundaries we have defined, whether they be in genetics or robotics. . . .” He hesitated, his expression becoming still more solemn. “Or, I fear, in other areas.”
“I see,” Corradon noted in an unhappy tone. “A terrible thought. Your third strand?”
Vero grimaced and twisted awkwardly on his seat. “Ah. That, sir, is the easiest by far. There is something evil about this. You can see it in the spiritual contagion. At its heart, this is evil.”
“I see,” said Corradon after a long, drawn-out silence. “Yes, I will not argue with that at least. Human, rebellious, and evil—worrying verdict. Lucian, what do you say?”
The advisor stared at his fingernails for a moment as if thinking carefully. Then he looked up at Corradon with his unfathomable eyes and said in his low, dark voice, “Sir, I would not argue with that view. But I would say that—by themselves—the adjectives human, rebellious, and evil do not greatly help us. Not without defining exactly what the nature of the threat is.”
Merral was troubled by the brittle, almost antagonistic, edge to Cle
mant’s words.
Vero looked hard at the advisor and then flung his hands wide. “D-Dr. Clemant, I do not dare be more precise. I was asked to comment and that I have done.”
“Please,” Corradon said, rubbing his forehead. “I take Sentinel Enand’s comments in the spirit they were offered. But I have a more practical question for our forester here.” He sighed. “You see, we meet with the other representatives tonight and tomorrow. Do I pass on to them what you have told us over these meetings? What do you say?”
“I would think so,” Merral answered, “but I am open to other advice.”
“I would agree,” Vero said, “but it should be done privately and face-to-face. They must be told not to tell anything about this matter to anybody else. And not to use a diary to talk about it or to store anything about it.”
“To keep it private.” Corradon stared at him with a perturbed expression. “Yes, you think they can read our diaries.” He cast a brief, unhappy glance at his advisor. “This is very difficult, Vero. You think all our lines of communication are being intercepted?”
“No. But for the moment, I think it is wisest to assume so. I want to research how we may make them secure.”
Corradon made no reply, and instead Clemant spoke. “Forgive us, Vero,” he said, his voice so deep that it almost seemed to rumble, “but perhaps we find it harder to take such a view. To put ourselves in—what shall we say?—a suspicious frame of mind.”
Vero hesitated. “I can sympathize. If I had not seen what I have seen in the last few days, I would be of a similar mind.”
Clemant tilted his head slightly, stroked his chin with a finger, and frowned. “But we are an open society. The idea of not transmitting views is very odd. I mean, we have a policy of transparency here.” Merral felt certain that there was a slight, but unmistakable, emphasis on the word here.
“As elsewhere in the Assembly,” replied Vero slowly, phrasing his words with an almost deliberate politeness. “But I have to say, from my studies of the ancient past, when faced with enemies, almost the most vital information we could give them is what we know about them.”
