Deepsix

by Jack McDevitt

  “What else can we conclude about the boat?” Beekman asked.

  “Prow looks like a sea serpent,” said Chiang. “Little bit of a Viking flavor.”

  “You know,” said Mira, “I hadn’t noticed that. But you’re right. They have art.”

  Art was important to Mira. Working on an Academy vessel, she understood that a civilization’s art was what defined it. In more personal terms, it was why one lived at all. One worked in order to make the time to enjoy the finer pleasures. She’d confided to Marcel that Beekman’s people, with few exceptions, were “quite parochial,” and were so consumed chasing down the details of the physical world that most had never learned to enjoy themselves. She considered herself a Sybarite in the highest sense of the word.

  She was one of the older persons on board. Mira had, in her own phrase, crashed through middle age and come out the other side. She was nevertheless willowy, attractive, precise. One of those very fortunate women who seem unaffected by passing years.

  “They had art,” Beekman corrected.

  “If we could get a close look at it,” said Chiang, “we might be able to figure out what they looked like. What we really need is to see it up close.”

  Mira nodded. “Next time,” she said, “we need to make sure we have a lander with us.” She sounded as if she thought somebody had blundered, and she was looking directly at Beekman.

  Later, Pete Reshevsky, a mathematician from Oslo, complained that he couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. “There’s nothing down there except ruins,” he said. “And it’s pretty obvious that whatever was here, they were pretty primitive. So we don’t really have anything to learn from them.” Reshevsky was small, sharp-nosed, muscular. A man who spent about half his time in the gym. His smile seldom reached his dark eyes. “We’d be better off,” he continued, “if everyone would stick to business and try to keep in mind why we’re here.”

  In the morning Wildside arrived. “Its captain wants to speak with you,” Bill told Marcel.

  Marcel liked Priscilla Hutchins. He’d worked with her on occasion, and had found her competent and easygoing. She’d become something of a legend twenty years ago when she’d piloted the expedition that discovered the Omega clouds.

  Marcel had envied her that mission. He’d been working for Kosmik. Inc., at the time, making the long run out to Quraqua every few months. That had been a spirit-killing experience. The money was good, and he’d been ambitious, looking for promotion into the hierarchy. Hutchins had been little more than a kid when it all happened, but the incident had glamorized piloting for the general public and persuaded Marcel that he’d had enough posting back and forth to nowhere. Within months, he’d resigned from Kosmik and signed on with the Academy.

  He was pleased to have Hutch in the neighborhood. It was a curious coincidence that the woman who’d played a major, if indirect, role in shaping his own career, should arrive at this moment. If he was going to be called upon to make decisions regarding the possible existence of aliens, it would be helpful to have her input.

  “Put her through,” he said.

  She was just barely tall enough to have met the minimum standards for a license. She had dark eyes, black hair cut short, animated features that were capable of lighting up a room when she chose. She greeted him with a broad smile. “Marcel,” she said, “good to see you again. I understand you’ve hit the jackpot.”

  “More or less. Do you think they’ll give me a bonus?”

  “The usual, I suspect.”

  “How much do you know?”

  “Only that there’s evidence of habitation. A tower. Are any of them still alive down there?”

  “We haven’t seen anybody.” He brought her up to date. The cities we know about are here and over here; there’ve been indications of inhabitants in these half dozen places. He used graphics to specify. “Biggest of the cities is in Southern Tempus.” He showed her. It was deep under a glacier. He didn’t think she’d be able to cut through to it in the time available.

  How much time was available?

  “The actual collision will occur around dinnertime, December 9. We expect the planet itself will begin breaking apart about forty hours earlier.” It was late Saturday evening, November 25. “But we can’t really be certain. You won’t want to push your luck.”

  “What do we know about the natives?”

  “Not much. They were small. About the size of five-year-olds, looks like. And we have evidence they were on four of the continents.”

  “Where do you suggest we set down?”

  “The tower’s as good as anyplace. It looks as if you can get right in with a minimum of digging. But there is a downside: The area’s directly on a fault line.”

  She hesitated. “You think it’ll be all right for a few days?”

  “Don’t know. Nobody here wants to take responsibility for that kind of guess.”

  “Show me where it is.”

  “It’s in northern Transitoria—”

  “Where?”

  Marcel directed Bill to post a chart.

  She looked at it, nodded, and asked about the Event. “What precisely is going to happen? And when?”

  “All right. Gunther—that’s Gunther Beekman, the head of mission—tells me conditions should remain relatively stable until the breakup begins. Once that starts, though, the end will come quickly. So you’ll want to get out early. I’d suggest a week early. Don’t monkey around with this. Get in, get your artifacts, get out.

  “You’ll probably experience quakes, major storms, stuff like that, early on. When Deepsix gets inside something called the Turner Horizon, the atmosphere will be ripped off, the oceans torn out, and the crust will turn to oatmeal. All pretty much within a few hours. The core will be all that’s left by the time it plunks into the soup. Just a chunk of iron.”

  Her eyes came back to him. “Okay. I guess we won’t want to dawdle.”

  “Do you expect to stay and watch it? The collision?”

  “Now that I’m here? Sure. If my passengers don’t scream too loudly.”

  For a long moment neither spoke. “It’s good to see you again, Hutch,” he said. It had been almost two years. She’d been coming in from Pinnacle, about to dock, and he was on his way out with a survey team. They’d talked a few minutes over the system, as they were doing now.

  But they hadn’t been physically in the same room for twice as long. They’d attended a navigation seminar at home on the Wheel. He’d been drawn to her, had spent part of an evening at a dinner party with her. But conditions had never been right. They’d always been going in opposite directions.

  She was looking at pictures. “It’s not much of a tower, is it?” It was circular, made of stone, with eight windows, each at a different level, facing a different direction. It stood twelve meters high. But the sensors had indicated another fifteen meters down to its base below ground, where it appeared to be connected to the interior of the city wall. There was a possibility they could use it to get directly into the city.

  Marcel had propped two pictures of it on his console. One was a close-up. The other depicted the tower in all its isolation.

  “When are you planning to start?” he asked.

  She canted her head. “Soon as we can pack the sandwiches.”

  “Hutch, my number one would like to go down with you.”

  She looked pleased. “Sure. If he wants, we’ll be glad to have him.”

  “He’s a she. Name’s Kellie Collier. She’s good. Be a big help if you run into trouble.”

  “I can use her. You don’t have any archeologists on board, I don’t guess?”

  “No. I’ve got a boatload of mathematicians, physicists, climatologists.”

  Hutch nodded. “How about an industrial-sized laser?”

  He laughed. “Wish I did.”

  “Okay. It was worth a try.”

  “Hutch, one other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “As I’m sure you know, we don’
t have a lander. If you get in trouble, I can’t come after you.”

  “I know. Have no fear, I plan to be very careful.”

  “Good. And do me a favor while you’re down there?”

  “Sure.”

  “Keep a channel open. So I can listen to what’s going on.”

  Hutch had put off informing Nightingale that Gomez thought it would be a good idea if he accompanied the landing party. She doubted he’d want to go, and was even less persuaded he’d be of use if he did. But at the moment she, Toni, and Kellie Collier were the entire team. She was going to need a couple of volunteers to stand guard and help carry out the artifacts. If they were able to find any artifacts.

  She thoroughly disliked this part of her job. They were calling on her to do something she knew little about, and she’d been around Academy politics long enough to know that Gomez would get credit for anything that came off successfully, and Hutch’s name would be forever blackened by any failure.

  Like the loss of Richard Wald twenty years ago.

  Wald had been a preeminent archeologist whom Hutch had piloted to Quraqua. During a long test of wills with a group of terraformers, Wald had been lost to a tidal wave. That episode had become legendary. Wald had stayed too long at an underwater site on that world, had stayed even while the wave approached, and in the end Hutch had been unable to lift him safely away. Some people had blamed her for the misfortune, claiming that she was the only one who had a clear view of events, and that she’d waited too long to warn him.

  She wondered whether Nightingale was another instance of the Academy’s tendency to find scapegoats.

  It was time to get it over with. She finished talking with Marcel, stopped by the common room for a sandwich, and then strolled down to Nightingale’s quarters and knocked on the door.

  He opened up and looked surprised. “Hello, Hutch,” he said. “Come in.” He’d been working at his computer. An image of Deepsix floated on the wallscreen. She glanced at it, at its blue seas, its cloud masses, its vast ice-covered continents. “Beautiful world,” she said.

  He nodded. “Cold world. They all look good from orbit.”

  “Randy, I’m sorry about the delay getting home.”

  “Hutch.” His eyes fixed hers. “You didn’t come here to go on about flight schedules. What can I do for you?”

  She handed him a copy of the transmission. He read it, looked at her, dropped his eyes again to the paper, looked up. “This is what Gomez wants,” he said. “What do you want?”

  She’d expected him to decline without hesitation. “I’d be pleased if you came. I can use some help.”

  “Who else is going?”

  “First officer from Wendy.”

  “That’s it?”

  “And Toni.”

  “You understand, despite what Gomez thinks, I have no special knowledge. I know the place is dangerous, but any living world is dangerous. You don’t need me to tell you that. And I’m not an archeologist.”

  “I know.”

  “If anyone were to ask my advice, Hutch, I’d say forget it. Stay away from the place.”

  “I don’t have that option.”

  “I know. You still want me?”

  “Yes. If you’ll come, I’d like very much to have you.”

  Marcel was surprised to discover how little interest in going down to the surface existed among his passengers. The general consensus seemed to be that if it were true there were natives of one sort or another on Deepsix, it was hard to see the significance of the fact. Nobody really cared. The culture was clearly primitive, and therefore there would be nothing to learn.

  He understood that exocology, that branch of the sciences which concerned itself with the social structures of alien societies, wasn’t part of their specialty, but he thought nonetheless they’d want to be on the ground for a major scientific find. A few came forward, commented that they wished they could go down, but then, when he offered to ask Hutch, backed off. Just too much to do. Experiments to set up. Otherwise, I’d go in a minute. You understand.

  Only Chiang Harmon volunteered. And Marcel suspected he wanted to go because Kellie was going.

  Theoretically, the ground mission should be simple. Just land, get pictures and samples, and come back. If natives show up, get pictures of them, too. Hutch hadn’t brought up the thorny issue of attempting to rescue any inhabitants, so he was going to let it lie. He decided that if locals appeared, and they indicated they wanted help, then he would try to provide it. Otherwise, he would simply let it go. It was a decision that kept him awake at night, but it seemed the only practical approach.

  There was another aspect to the mission that worried him. He knew how the scientific mind worked. Hutch’s team would get down there, they’d be looking at a new marvel, and they’d inevitably discover things that would be hard to explain. And they’d want to get the last possible artifact, the last possible answer, and he had no trouble imagining Deepsix gliding toward its unhappy conclusion while he pleaded with Hutch to get off the surface, and she continually reassured him that she would. That she needed only another hour.

  Of course Hutch didn’t officially possess a scientific mind. And she’d stated she planned to be away with time to spare. So why not take her at her word?

  On the Evening Star, Gregory MacAllister had just excused himself for the evening and left The Navigator, headed for his quarters, when a young woman approached and asked if she might speak with him briefly. He recognized her as having been present in the bistro during the evening’s discussion on the postmodernist movement in Russian theater. She’d been seated toward the rear, and had contributed nothing, but had remained attentive throughout.

  That the woman was extraordinarily attractive cut no ice with him. MacAllister never had trouble collecting beautiful women. But he could be impressed by a person’s ability to concentrate, which always implied talent.

  He was no respecter of money or position, nor could he be won over by charm or by that series of affectations known as charisma. During his sixty-odd years, he had found there were as many louts in the patrician classes as there were ignoramuses farther down the social spectrum. He liked to believe that only intellect engaged him, although he was inclined to assess intellect as a direct corollary of an individual’s regard for MacAllister’s opinions.

  “My name is Casey Hayes,” she said. She fumbled in a jacket pocket and produced a press card. “I’m with Interweb.”

  MacAllister allowed his eyes to drift momentarily shut. A journalist.

  She was tall, with fashion-model features, and lush brown hair brushed back in the current style. She wore gray slacks and a dark jacket with a diamond stud. No ordinary journalist, this one, he decided.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked, noncommittally.

  “Mr. MacAllister, have you been listening to the reports out of the Maleiva system?”

  “Regarding the ruins? Yes, I’ve been keeping up with them. Of course.”

  He had slowed his pace but not stopped. She fell into step beside him. “It occurred to me,” she said, “that this is precisely the sort of event that would interest you. A solitary tower in a faraway place.”

  “Really?” Journalists always saw in him a potential story, and they were perfectly willing to fabricate whatever circumstance might dictate to get him to talk. There was just no knowing when MacAllister might say something outrageous and shock the public sensibility, or perhaps offend a whole bloc of people. Like last year’s remark at Notre Dame, where he was receiving an award, that anyone who truly wished to develop tolerance toward other human beings should start by casting aside any and all religious affiliation. When challenged by one of the other guests, he had asked innocently whether anyone could name a single person put to death or driven from his home by an atheist over theological matters. Had the individual been fully functional, MacAllister had thought, he would have questioned the editor’s own celebrated intolerance.

  But thank God these people w
ere never quick on their feet.

  “Yes,” she continued. “I’ve been a reader of yours ever since college.” She launched into a short dissertation on the wonderfulness of his work, and he was inclined to let her go on. But it was late and he was tired. So he encouraged her to come to the point.

  “On Maleiva III,” she said, “we’re looking at a lost civilization. Maybe some of them are even still alive.” She beamed a smile intended to sweep his resistance into the night. “What were they like, do you think? How long had they been there? Does this kind of climax suggest that their entire history, everything they’ve ever accomplished, is really of no consequence?”

  “Young lady,” he began.

  “Casey.”

  “Young lady, how on earth would I know? For that matter, why would I care?”

  “Mr. MacAllister, I’ve read Reflections of a Barefoot Journalist.”

  He was surprised. Barefoot was a collection of essays from his early days, jabbing every social stupidity from breast worship to the timorousness of husbands. But it also contained a long essay defending the bizarre notion, originally promulgated by Rousseau, that there was much to be learned from those untouched by the decadent influence of civilization. That of course was before he’d grasped the truth, that decadence was rather an appealing state. “None of it applies,” he said. “The fact that somebody lived on Deepsix who knew how to pile stones on top of one another scarcely seems to be of any significance. Especially since they and the stones are about to go to a happier world.”

  She looked at him and he saw determination in her eyes. “Mr. MacAllister, you must be wondering why I stopped you.”

  “Not really.”

  “I’d like very much—”

  “To do an interview with me.”

  “Yes. As a matter of fact, I would. If you could spare the time.”

  He’d been a young journalist himself once. Long ago. And it was hard to refuse this particular woman. Why was that? Was he being compromised by his wiring? “About what?” he asked.

  “I’d just like to do a general conversation. You can talk about whatever pleases you. Although since we’re both here for the Event, that would undoubtedly come up.”