THIRTY-FOUR
There is no more telling representation of the quality of a civilization than its art. Show me how it perceives beauty, what moves it to tears, and I will tell you who they are.
—Tulisofala, Mountain Passes (Translated by Leisha Tanner)
We found what had once been, as far as we could tell, a shoe store. We weren’t sure because there were no shoes anywhere. But there were some boxes, and their dimensions seemed right. And a shoehorn.
There was a food market, with empty shelves. And a shop that we couldn’t be sure about but which might have sold guns. Like the food store, it had been cleaned out. The same was true of a hardware store. “Whatever happened,” Alex said, “they saw it coming.”
Then there was the art gallery. The walls had been stripped, and the only reason we were able to identify it was that some printed leaflets were scattered across the floor. Everything else was gone.
“Maybe not everything,” said Alex, standing near a door in a back room. The door was locked. It was large, heavy, and still standing, though it had been shot full of holes. A dried-out corpse, with a gun in one hand, lay nearby. Maybe it had been the owner; maybe one of the looters. Alex walked past it and used his cutter to take the door down.
Behind it lay a storage area. Oil paintings—they could be nothing else—covered with cloth, were propped against the walls. We looked at each other, switched on our lamps, picked one at random, and removed the wrapping.
It was an abstract, blue and silver bands of varying dimensions curving across a field of disconnected branches and flowers. It was dark in the room, and the floor was damp. As was the painting, whose colors had been debased by large gray splotches.
“Pity,” said Alex.
We pulled the cloth from another.
A building that might have been a country church waited in double moonlight. A ghostly radiance emanated from it, and two deerlike animals stood off to one side.
It was lovely despite more damage from the damp environment.
Alex said nothing, but I could feel his frustration.
The next one was a portrait.
The subject was human. An elderly man, he wore a dark jacket and a white shirt open at the neck. His beard was trimmed, and he looked out at us with congenial green eyes and the hint of a smile. Odd that we should meet like this.
“Alex,” I said, “you think these are the people who put the polygon on Echo II? Their ancestors, that is?”
“Probably, Chase. Yes, I’d guess so. Sad that these later generations were reduced to using gas lamps.”
“I wonder what happened.”
The canvas was crumpled in places. Stained.
Alex stood silently, the beam from his lamp playing across the amiable features. I wondered who he had been. What had become of him.
One by one, we went through the entire stock, landscapes, abstracts, and more portraits. Young women laughing on a porch. A mother and child. A man standing with a large saddled animal that resembled an oversized bulldog. A house by a lake.
In each case, we reluctantly replaced the cover and set the painting back against the wall. Occasionally, Alex muttered something under his breath, now and then audible, more often not.
“The water got to this one, too.”
“Looks like a Brankowski, but this one’s also ruined.”
“Apparently they had a taste for abstracts.”
We were near the end when we found one that seemed not to have been damaged. It depicted a snowcapped mountain in a winter storm. Just visible on the lower slopes was something that resembled a dinosaur nibbling at a tree.
It was magnificent. Maybe it was just that it was unspoiled. In truth, everything in that place sent chills down my spine. Don’t ask me why. I’d have loved to put that last landscape, the one with the dinosaur, on my living-room wall. In that somber place, on that night, it came very close to bringing tears.
Alex simply stood for several minutes admiring it. Then, finally, he asked the question I knew he’d been thinking about: “Chase, do you think we can get this into the lander?”
“No,” I said. It was too big. We wouldn’t even be able to get it through the airlock.
He examined the wrapping. Then we re-covered it and took it into the adjoining room, where we set it on a table. “We need to find a way.”
“Alex—” I said.
“What?”
“It doesn’t feel right, taking it.”
“You think it makes more sense to leave it here?”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s damp here, Chase. Leave it and lose it.”
“I know. I just—I can’t explain why. It feels like theft.”
“Chase, ask yourself what the artist”—he glanced around the empty room—“what he would want us to do? Leave the painting in that wet room? Or—”
I wanted to say why didn’t we go back and report the find? But if we did that, a bunch of treasure hunters would descend on the place and make off with everything. The painting would go. And the stone fish and the gaping serpents in the park. And probably the gas streetlights and anything else they could find. “If you insist,” I said.
“Come on, Chase. If we found the Pearl of Korainya, would we leave it on a bedroom table?”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“What’s the difference?”
I didn’t know. “For one thing,” I said, “the Pearl of Korainya would fit through the hatch.”
“Yeah,” he said. “You have a point.” He touched the painting gently with his fingertips. “It’s not canvas. Not flexible at all.”
“So we can’t roll it up?”
“No.”
“Can we take it out of the frame?”
“I don’t think so. Not without damaging it.”
We’d need Belle to help. So I checked to make sure she was in range. She was.
The painting would have been heavy enough on Rimway. But on Echo III, its weight was not only substantially more, but so was ours. We were by then about a fifteen-minute walk from the lander. Hauling the thing to the vehicle would have been a serious struggle. So we decided to go the other way: bring the lander in and put it outside the front door. It would be a squeeze, but it was manageable. So we picked up the landscape and staggered out into the shop and set it down again.
“Let’s go,” I said.
“You get the lander. I’ll wait here.”
“Alex, there’s nobody here to make off with it.”
“I know,” he said. “But old habits die hard.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.”
I know it sounds crazy. But I understood what he was feeling. It was more than simply a painting that, should we choose to sell it, would bring an enormous sum from a collector. It also provided us with a sense of who had lived on that world. Alex wasn’t going to take even the remotest chance of letting it get away.
I dug some cable out of one of the storage lockers, lifted off, and squeezed down into the street just outside the art gallery. Alex came out of the display area and focused his attention on the hatch.
“You’re right,” he said. “It’s not going to fit in there, is it?” Even if we could get it through the airlock, it would be too big for the cabin.
“We’ll have to secure it to the hull,” I said.
“Take it up on the outside?” He was horrified.
“It’s the only way.”
“Do you think we can get it back to the Belle-Marie undamaged?”
“Probably not.”
“What are the chances?”
“I don’t know, Alex. But I suggest we leave it here. Come back for it later. With a bigger carrier.”
“I’m tempted to try. But I hate to just walk away from it.”
I waited for him to change his mind. He didn’t.
“All right,” I said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
We dragged a table into the street and set it beside the lander. Then we carried
the painting out and lifted it onto the table. Carefully.
We checked the wrapping again. When we were satisfied, we looped the cable around the entire package. “We’ll have to secure it to the treads,” I said. “There’s nowhere else.”
“Okay. Whatever it takes, Chase.”
I explained how we’d do it. He agreed, and I went into the lander and sat down at the controls. “Ready, Alex,” I said.
“Go ahead.”
I turned the antigravs on and lifted just off the ground. About two meters.
“That’s good,” he said.
“Belle,” I said, “can you hold us right where we are?”
“I’ve got it.” Her voice was in its warning mode. “But be advised that remaining aloft in a stationary position in this gravity is a severe drain on the fuel.”
“Okay.”
“I suggest you proceed with dispatch.”
I got out of the seat, went back to the airlock, and climbed down the ladder. Alex gave me a hand and grunted. “Need to watch what you eat,” he said.
Ha-ha.
Part of the package lay within the antigrav containment field, so it didn’t weigh as much as it had. But it was still heavy enough, and in any case it was awkward to handle. We began tying it to the underside of the treads, front down. It was tricky, and the situation wasn’t helped by an approaching storm that started kicking up some wind. Suddenly, Alex was telling me to look out and don’t drop it and he almost lost it himself once, which somehow made him even more convinced that it was just a matter of time before the thing got blown away.
A couple of times, he looked at the sky. Lightning rippled through the clouds. “Chase,” he said, “when we’re in the air, can you keep clear of the bad weather?”
“I don’t know. You want my honest opinion?”
“Of course.”
“The smart thing to do would be to take the painting back inside and wait the storm out.”
I heard him sigh. Then he was on the circuit. “Belle, can you give us a reading on the storm? How long’s it going to be in the area?”
“Probably all night, Alex. It looks like a major system.”
He turned a withering eye on the art gallery. “Let’s clear out,” he said. “We’ll just be careful.”
We walked around the package, tugging on it, tightening it, assuring ourselves it was secure.
Belle gave me a second warning: “We are burning excessive amounts of fuel.”
“Okay,” Alex said, signaling he was ready to board. But the lander was floating too high.
“Belle,” I said, “come down one meter. Carefully.”
She brought the vehicle down. There was a bad moment when the wind caught us, and I thought it was going to drive us into the buildings. But Belle reacted superbly and held it steady while we scrambled up the ladder and through the airlock. Alex closed the hatch, and I fell into my seat. “Up, Belle,” I told her. “Let’s go.”
THIRTY-FIVE
When I hear people speak of talent or capability, I know they’re really thinking about timing. Being in the right place at the right time. If one can do that, and you know when and how to smile, greatness lies ahead.
—Vassily Kyber, first inauguration address
The wind had picked up substantially, and I should have tried harder to dissuade Alex from leaving. Should have, but I didn’t. I don’t know whether it was because I didn’t want to spend any more time in that god-forsaken place. Or I didn’t want Alex to think I was being too negative about the project. Or whether I didn’t want to turn into a coward. In any case, the wind caught us as we rose. Fortunately, it didn’t become a problem until we were clear of the buildings, but it did blow us all around the sky. Alex commented that it was worse than he’d thought, and I knew immediately I’d made a mistake. But I had to live with it then because I couldn’t go back down without demolishing the package.
“Windy,” he said.
“Yes, it is.” I was trying to sound as if it was nothing out of the ordinary.
The package quickly became a sail.
“Everything okay?” Alex asked, as we rolled out toward the sea, then rolled back in again.
“Yeah. We’re all right.”
I couldn’t see Alex, who was behind me because of the broken seat, but I knew his grip on the arms of his chair had tightened. He wouldn’t talk much. As conditions worsened, or rather as his perception of them grew clearer, he’d just hang on and try to look as if he weren’t at all worried. That was how his mind worked: Don’t scare the pilot.
We kept rising, and I was hoping we’d get above it before the painting got damaged. Or worse.
“Chase,” said Belle. “The cargo is creating a severe problem.”
“I know.”
Belle is not above letting me know that I’ve done something she doesn’t approve of. She does that by falling silent when a response would seem to be called for. Which is precisely what she did.
“You think we should go back?” said Alex, finally.
“To be honest—” I knew he was watching, analyzing my reactions so he could figure out how much trouble we were in.
“Yes?” he said.
“We have no way to land without damaging the package.”
“Forget the package.”
And I realized I was trying to sound noble. “Alex,” I said, “with or without a painting hanging from our treads, I wouldn’t recommend going near the ground. We’re safer up here.”
“Okay. Onward and upward, babe.”
We continued to roll back and forth. The painting had become loose. We listened to it bang into the treads every few seconds. Conditions meantime got progressively worse as we climbed. We got driven one way, then another. We got tossed on our side. We rode up one set of air columns and down another. We got rolled over, and even turned upside down. “This thing could use bigger wings,” I said.
Belle’s lamp came on. There was a small screen at my left hand. She used it when she wanted to tell me something that she didn’t want the passengers to hear. I don’t think she’d ever used it before when Alex was the only other person in the vehicle. “We are burning fuel,” it read, “at an unacceptable rate. Our effort to maintain headway and stability against the wind is draining us.”
“Orbit?” I asked, keeping my voice down.
“Not a chance.”
Rain burst over us. Then, almost immediately, it was gone.
Belle broke in again, using audio: “If you’re concerned about the artwork, you may be worrying for no reason.”
“I can guess why.”
“I’m sure you can. It has certainly suffered major damage.” She showed us a picture. Part of the wrapping had broken loose and spilled out into the sky. Worse, the rear section of the package was crumpling, was being pushed against the treads’ support frame.
“Unload it,” said Alex.
“We—” It was as far as I got: A gust hit us. Even Belle yelped. The lights went out, and the antigravs shut down. Suddenly, our weight was back. The ascent died, and we began to fall.
Backup power came on. We got lights, but they were dim. The engines came back, sputtered, whined, gasped.
And the automated voice—not Belle’s—spoke: “Main power is no longer functioning. Please shut down all nonessential systems. I am trying to restore zero gee.”
I started turning off everything in sight. Control lamps, navigation lights, sensors, climate control, airlock systems, monitors.
“Chase—?” said Alex.
“We’ve got too much drag.”
“Get rid of it.”
“Doing that now.”
I retracted the treads. If we got lucky, the package would break away. Or at least it might jam into the hold. Anything to get it away from the wind.
I found myself hanging on, counting off the twelve seconds that the retraction system needed to store the treads and close the doors. The control lamps were off, so I wouldn’t get a signal that the maneuver ha
d been successfully completed. Or not. But normally when the doors close, you can hear them. There’s a very distinct chunk when they lock down.
The count went past twelve and on to about fifteen, but we got no chunk.
Still, I had gotten some control back.
“Okay?” Alex asked.
“Getting there.” The wind continued to hammer us, but it had lessened. I was actually able to maintain course. Almost. “I think we’re all right,” I said.
A few minutes later, the power came back, and we were able to take a look at the underside. The doors were more or less closed, but the frame had crumpled. We were dragging it and a sizable piece of the protective covering, but if it was creating maneuvering problems, at least it was no longer playing the part of a sail.
It put Alex into a somber mood. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said. “That was as dumb as anything I’ve ever done.”
“Alex,” I said, “you asked for an opinion, and I told you it would probably be all right. There’s plenty of blame to go around.”
I should confess that, when I started putting this memoir together, I’d intended to leave this sequence out. After all, you want a narrative that makes you look good. That’s the whole point of doing the damned thing.
But a year or two earlier, when I was writing the account of our hunt for the Seeker, I was faced with a similar decision. Alex advised me to tell the whole story. “Once you start making stuff up,” he’d said, “everything becomes suspect. Do it as it happened. Let some other idiot write the fiction.”
THIRTY-SIX
It is a natural reaction, when a shadow comes at us out of the darkness, a thing we do not know and cannot grasp, to run. And if we cannot run, we will kill it, if we can. Nothing is more certain. Nor should it be.
—Vicki Greene, Wish You Were Here
It was ironic. After the gaslit city, followed by three more days of riding in orbit and seeing nothing other than abandoned habitations, we would probably have given up and gone home. But that crazy assassin had been sent out to stop us. So there was something to be uncovered.
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